Dying to Live
by origamikungfu
Summary: "Have you someone to protect?" someone once asked him... Sometimes it takes a brush with death to understand why we fight to live. Ch 17: Rin fights. Sesshomaru faces an unfortunate lesson. Nietzsche once said: "Man is the cruelest animal."
1. Prologue

**_Dying to Live_**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.**

**Summary: **

**The tables are turned in this alternate ending fic: At last, after 6 years Naraku is defeated, Inuyasha finally gets his wish, and Sesshomaru finds himself literally on the precipice between death and a whole new life. "Have you someone to protect?" someone once asked him... Sometimes it takes a brush with death to understand why we fight to live. Family, Romance, Drama, Relationships, Transformations. Rin x Sesshomaru and the whole cast.**

**::::**

**PROLOGUE**

**::::**

Kohaku's eyes scanned the woods around him. The smell of the air was thick with the scent of wet vegetation and decomposing wood. The dense canopy of branches above held out the sunlight year-round so that moss and various types of mold and mushrooms were scattered across the muddy forest trail.

Deciding that his position was clear, the armor-clad youth paused on a matted pile of leaves, a few feet from a rotting log in the middle of the path. Reaching to one side, he loosened the fastener on a small leather pouch that was tied at his waist. From it he produced a small, ruby-colored crystal. It was about the size of a small hermit crab's shell and crafted into the shape of a tear drop. Glowing from the core of the little charm was a crimson hued light. Nearly a day before, when Kohaku had first started out on his journey, the light emanating from the crystal had been but a faint, flickering ember; now, however, the glass drop was brightly illuminated by the throbbing of its tiny, scarlet nucleus.

:

"Yes, Master?" Kohaku had said as he knelt obediently on one knee before his demonic lord. "You wish for me to do some task?"

"Yes," Naraku answered, his voice deep and sinister, as he moved out of the shadows to stand in front of his servant. In the form of Onigumo, he slid his pale, slender hand under the collar of his indigo over-garment to produce a dull, colorless stone shaped like a tear.

"I want you to take this crystal to the tomb in the forest," Naraku told him. As he said this, he held the crystallized drop in his left hand, between his index finger and thumb until it made small cuts in his skin and the blood trickled onto the stone. As a seed thirstily soaks up water given to it, the crystal rapidly absorbed the blood into its center until it blushed red and gleamed in the light. The core throbbed blood-red once and then immediately died down to a weak fluttering glow.

"When you arrive there, drop it into the grave and return here. The crystal will guide you to the tomb," Naraku instructed, as he dropped the crystal into Kohaku's cupped hands.

:

He was in the forest now, and Kohaku felt that the tomb was close by, judging by the stone's reaction.

Closing his hand around the crystal, Kohaku started toward the rotten log in the middle of the path. Although partially weathered away, the log was still massive, coming up mid thigh on Kohaku. Placing one foot up on the log for leverage and boosting himself up with both hands, he was able stand atop the log on its soft, soggy bark. Stealing another quick look at his surroundings, the boy prepared to launch off of the log, but just as he was about to spring away from it, he was over-powered by a sharp bolt of pain from his shoulder. Kohaku was vaguely aware that the pain was coming from the cramped spot on his back, just above his left shoulder-blade, the spot from which Naraku kept a hold over him. He screamed in pain as it surged down his left arm and shot in all directions across his back. Having lost his footing from shock, he slipped forward and collapsed into the mud at the base of the log. Paralyzed by the horrifying sensation that was blazing through his body, Kohaku lay motionless and sprawled in the mud. Naraku's bloody-red crystal continued to throb rhythmically in his open, outstretched palm.

A refreshing breeze was blowing in through the doorway of the small hut when Kohaku opened his eyes. Warm beneath the blankets that had been carefully laid over his body, the boy had been gently awoken by the refreshing summer air against his cheek. Slowly opening his eyes, Kohaku first noticed the bright strips of light that shone around the bamboo curtain covering the entrance to the hut; the curtain swung slightly in and out in the cool draft. There were no windows in the house, so the room was only dimly lit, but he could see that his armor had been laid out neatly in the far corner of the room.

Although he was fully awake, Kohaku rolled over onto his side and pulled the sheets up to his neck. This place was peaceful, and it made him feel relaxed as he watched the curtain shifting in the breeze.

Kohaku knew that he had once lived in a village in a hut similar to this one, because he had memories of it, and had occasionally dreamed of it. And sometimes he had dreams of the girl "Sango," who traveled with the young miko and Inyasha, his lord's greatest enemy. In his dreams, her eyes were soft and brown and her long, black hair was pulled up into a tie. He did not know exactly who she was, but he recognized her as a demon slayer from the armor that she wore. In his dreams, she always had a very gentle and kind face, although sometimes she would look as though she was very frightened, and the dreams would end. Kohaku felt that he had once known her, but feared that he may have done something horrible to her that he could not remember.

Tearing himself from the comfort of the bed, Kohaku folded back the sheets and hurried to dress. Once again fully downed in armor, he headed for the door, planning to find whoever had taken him in and give proper thanks. He drew back the bamboo curtain cheerfully; however, his good mood was treacherously pierced by the steel blade of irony as he turned into the brightness outside.

The sun's rays burned against his skin, despite the cool breeze that continued to carelessly skirt across the porch. At first blinded by the intense light, Kohaku lifted his hand to shield his eyes. The air here was stale and sour with death. The tainted scent was no stranger to Kohaku, yet his muscles contracted and his teeth ground.

The sight of the village only confirmed the fact: the streets had been completely massacred, and bodies lay slain and staggered about. Gathering courage, he stepped off the porch into the open grave before him. Moving through the mass carnage, Kohaku forced himself to look around. It was difficult to tell exactly how long it had been since the attack had occurred, but he felt that whoever had done it was no longer present.

Continuing through the village, his eyes watchfully shifted from side to side, almost causing him to trip over the body of a man lying in the middle of the street. Startled, Kohaku halted before the figure in his path. The cause of the man's death was apparent as he lay in dirt muddied by his own blood. Kohaku examined him; the man's left arm had been severed away from his torso. The cut was not clean, causing the flesh to be torn and ragged and the bone splintered. Unable to stand the sight of it, Kohaku cringed, turning his eyes away in grief. It was not the work of a sword, which told Kohaku that it was unlikely that a human had killed this man. He looked down again at the corpse, this time careful to avoid the sight of the mortal wound, and noticed the gleaming blade of a sickle lying on the ground near the victim's stiff hand. It looked like the villager had dropped it when he had fallen to the ground. Kohaku squatted down and picked the abandoned weapon up and secured it under a strap on his armor; perhaps he would need it.

Rising to stand again, his attention was captured by movement coming from the body of another fallen villager only a few feet away. Kohaku's eyes darted to the man's face, and he saw that his eyes were open.

"Hey! Hey!" the man called hoarsely, lifting his head off the ground.

Hurrying over, Kohaku dropped to the villager's side. "What happened here? Who attacked you?" Kohaku asked frantically.

The man's gaze was dazed and glassy as stared up at Kohaku, but he managed to reach up and grasp a fold in the boy's clothing. The man had been badly beaten, and his face and chest were marked with large gashes. "It… It took the crystal," he rasped, as his body began to quiver.

"Huh? What crystal? What was 'it'?" Kohaku questioned leaning closer to the villager. But it was too late; the man's soul had already drifted from his body.

:::

**Notes: This is a story that I started quite a while ago and never had time to finish, although I have kept the ideas for where I wanted it to go in my mind ever since. Finally, I again have to time to work on it, and I still wanted to share it :) It is AU in that it is mostly inspired by the more ambiguous closing of the original Inuyasha series before "The Final Act" episodes and does not deal with the Naraku/Infant story line.**

**Rather, we begin our tale here 6 years (instead of 3) after Kagome initially shattered the Shikon Jewel...**


	2. Chapter 1

(Edited 5 May 2013)

**_Dying to Live_**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha**

**::::**

**PART I: LIVING TO DIE**

_ Why am I fighting to live if I 'm just living to fight?_

_Why am I trying to see when there ain't nothing in sight?_

_Why am I trying to give when no one gives me a try?  
_

_Why am I dying to live if I'm just living to die?_**  
**

**-**Edgar Winter in "Dying to Live"

**::::**

The breeze danced playfully through the tangled grasses of the open field by the castle, as Sesshomaru stood blankly surveying the plain. His last encounter with his half-breed brother replayed through his thoughts. Every time he even thought about Inuyasha he became enraged with thoughts of the snowy night when their father had asked him whom he had to protect.

He, Sesshomaru, protecting someone? Absurd.

Thinking of it, he unsheathed his fang and held it out, its point skyward. The blade gleamed in the sun, casting scattered rays of light across the dog demon's face.

_How useless. _His father had been a fool. It sickened Sesshomaru to know that he had been sired by a demon who had possessed fantastic power, but was nothing but a love-sick romantic. Overwhelmed with disgust, he grasped the handle crushingly.

"I protect no one!" he seethed furiously, angrily thrusting Tenseiga down.

Obediently, the sword pierced the earth. It rang out in pain as the long blade careened back and forth, overpowered by the force.

As Sesshomaru continued to glare hatefully at the quivering fang, he detected a small sound from behind him.

Turning only but a little, he looked over his shoulder out of the corner of his eye. There stood Rin, small and quiet, previously unnoticed by him. Her large, brown eyes glistened sadly with tears. The air shifted softly through her loose, black hair.

Sesshomaru stared at her dumbly across the grass. A tear rolled down the bridge of Rin's nose and slid off the tip when she sniffled. She spun around to escape through the knotted grass. Dragging the clouds across the sun, the breeze cantered fleetingly after her, leaving Sesshomaru alone.

:

"The human is gone, my lord!" Jaken reported gleefully, as he bowed faithfully before his lord and master.

"But, that selfish girl!" the demon with huge, bulging eyes continued. "When she left, she must have stolen one of your horses, for you're one short, my lord! We should track her down! She should not get away with such a crime!"

"Let her go, Jaken," Sesshomaru replied stiffly.

The servant's face fell with a "Wha-?" at his master's calm, unaltered demeanor.

"It is not my business whether the girl wishes to come or go. She never had any obligation to me, nor I to her," the demon stated.

"But—!"

"I wish to be alone. Leave, Jaken."

"Y-yes, my lord. As you wish!" Jaken obediently stuttered and scurried from the large room.

The room was unusually big with large, white, square pads built into its lacquer-wood paneled floors. Originally the chamber had been used as a dining hall, and guests knelt around tables on the pads. But a demon lord had no need for such a trivial room, and so it was left empty and completely unfurnished. At either end of the long hall were wood paned, rice paper covered sliding doors. For several minutes after Jaken had cowered from the room dragging the heavy door shut behind him, Sesshomaru remained standing in the center of one of the pads. He stood up very straight with his feet spread shoulder-width apart and his arms crossed before him, thinking. His memories traveled to the first time he had used the Tenseiga. That was the day he chose to bring the little, orphaned mute-girl back to life. To bring Rin back from the dead. It had been done on nothing but a stroke of desire to test the power of the sword. Yet, she had stayed with him for all of that time…

"My, if his Lordship is not caught in some very deep thought."

Sesshomaru started slightly at the dark tone of the woman's voice. He turned slowly to find her standing behind him. The youkai found it strange that his keen hearing had not warned him sooner of her presence. "I do apologize, I am afraid that I am quite rude to have disturbed your contemplation my Lord, in fact, I enjoy a man who can think on his feet," she continued. Her words came like thick, rich syrup and she formed her sentences in the way of the states' elite.

However, the demon eyed her carefully as she advanced, for despite her impressive linguistics, nothing could be seen of the stranger's body: every part was draped in delicately crafted fabrics. Even her eyes were shielded from view by a fold of cloth.

Having surveyed her thoroughly, Sesshomaru lazily turned his sight from her with disregard. He spoke with no effort: "Return from where you came, woman, for I am no man, and this castle is no shelter."

"Good, I seek neither!" the woman answered roughly, and Sesshomaru glanced back at her. The traveler had tossed back her garments to reveal a pale, thin, be-clawed hand and had surged at him.

Finding the attack less than threatening, Sesshomaru decided to save the would-be assailant her dramatics and simply destroy her now. He unleashed his acidic whip on her, which twisted around her exposed arm. The woman halted and produced another clawed hand to clutch her presently restrained arm. She seemed to tremble slightly in pain as the line of acid burned away the flesh.

She continued to grimace against the corrosion, but when she spoke it was apparent that the words passed through an unseen smile. "You think you are so clever, but I knew that you would use this move." With a sudden burst of strength, the she-demon yanked back on the whip of acid, which had become the rope she would use to bring Lord Sesshomaru to his knees.

:

Rin had ridden for hours, passing in and out of a world where rain showers constantly chased one another like children playing tag on a summer's eve. Yet, she stopped only once to change horses after her borrowed mount had begun to foam. She thought sadly of the poor, broken beast, even as she realized how fiercely she was pushing the new mare. Noticing a patch of luminous green in the graying afternoon light, she slowed the chestnut-coated horse between two trees growing on opposite sides of the gravel road. As she dismounted to the sounds of the mare's slowly easing breaths, she surveyed the grass. But the girl's fingers shook as she reached for the reigns and bridle. She still wanted to go. To leave the fantasies of her childish heart behind and seek something real… Idling only filled her heart with fear of the cowardice that lurked to press her back into more years of languish in a heartless demon's shadow. But was he really heartless, or just cold of heart that maybe she could… No. Heartless.

The girl crouched beside the horse's mighty, strong head and examined its glistening, deep muddy-brown eyes. They looked so warm. Her own brown eyes looked to the ground and her long, ragged, disheveled raven locks twisted about her face as a sudden gust of warm wind swirled about them. She glanced at her hair as it swayed back and forth before her eyes, catching on their dark lashes. It had been so long since she lived among other humans. Mother used to cut her hair and lengthen the hems of her yukata… Now her hair grew unruly and torn at the ends like that of a demon's and the wind chilled her wrists, unprotected by outgrown sleeves…

But as she lusted more deeply to shed savage ways for civilization, the gusts increased and swirled harder as they reflected off the two trees by the road. Rin emitted a small whine as she fought to pull herself up against the animal's muscular body. Though, she remained gripped by her desire to press forward into the racing storm clouds converging upon her, she knew she could not. So, unwillingly, she turned her face away from debris lifting on the wind toward the direction from whence she came. Her eyes contemptibly fell at the foot of the hilly road and wandered back up it. The chaotic fighting of the winds broke and the victor carried the defeated in a sustained rush back into the hills. Rin's expression remained blank and staring as the current pushed past her like a river, now completely unchanging in its flow. She remounted the mare without question, and followed the wind's mischievous path back into the hills.

::

The air in the village was tainted with a fowl scent that evening, as that night's breeze slowly began to pour in between the little huts. But everything was alright for those who stood around the blazing funeral pyre. On it, the body of Onigumo was disappearing before Kagome's eyes forever. Kaede showed her how to purify the body so that its tortured soul could finally reach reincarnation. There was no mistake: both Onigumo and Naraku were dead, and the Shikon-no-Tama was, at last, whole again. It had taken them almost five years to do it, two years of which Kagome had traveled tirelessly, deferring her decision to go back to school for college like her friends Eri and Ayumi had, while Yuka had also gone on with her life to get a job... and a serious boyfriend.

Deciding to commit all her time and energy into finishing the quest for the jewel had seemed like the most natural thing to Kagome when she finished high school. Her grades had been less than spectacular considering all the time she had been out of school for her visits to the feudal era, so applying to 2-year colleges, not even the regular universities, appeared to be a pretty dark task. Likewise, getting a job in retail or any other hourly position seemed totally out of the question, if she still planned to keep hunting the jewel; if she missed work as much as she had missed school, she wouldn't have a job for very long. So she decided the only option was to finish her duties as a priestess first, for which Sango, Miroku, Shippo, and Kaede were only too happy, for none of them wanted to see their dear friend go nor could they imagine trying to finish the task without her. Most importantly, "Who else could keep Inuyasha in check?", they had asked at the time. To this, Inuyasha had merely harumphed in his usual way and stubbornly muttered something ambiguously, non-committal like "Of course, she can't leave yet!" Which brought her to the next major concern she faced that night: the beginning of her life now that the quest to destroy Naraku and complete the Shikon Jewel were through.

That's why with the little round jewel gleaming in the moonlight, as it dangled about her neck on a plain piece of yarn, the young miko stared into the dancing flames, lost in thought. She thought neither of the freed soul of Onigumo nor of the final damnation that the rotten demonic spirit of Naraku would face; instead, she replayed a conversation that had passed some time ago, but remained constantly in her thoughts.

_"Inuyasha, look!"_ _She rested on the edge of a large cool stone in the middle of a sunny afternoon. Her feet hung over the side into a shallow, little pool of water that had collected beside the forest creek in a rain shower the night before. Tiny silver minnows darted about as she sunk her toes into the warm grey silt. _

_ He came to her side, even though she saw the arrogant annoyance in his eyes. "What?" he asked sharply._

_ "The jewel: there's only one piece left missing. I had forgotten how beautiful it was when it was still whole." She let her eyes wander over the nearly perfect sphere._

_ "Yeah, well it's not whole yet," he scoffed and then added, "Besides don't look so closely at it like that. It does things to people's minds."_

_ She continued to admire it over the rhythm of the water dashing over the pebbles in the creek. "Is that so? Well then what about you, Inuyasha?"_

_ "Huh?" He had been watching the small fish playing around the paleness of the girl's ankles. "What about me?"_

_ "Did you ever look at the Shikon-no-Tama too closely?" The current continued to brush across the pebbles, and a toad called from the rushes._

_ "No, of course not! Before I even saw it, I knew that I wanted it. And before long I'll finally have it," he said and threw a flat stone across the top of the pool. The shiny, little fish dispersed and disappeared into the silt when it jumped on the glassy surface above them. _

_ A heron that had been fishing nearby lifted out of the water with a shrill call, and another answered it from somewhere within the green trees. Then, nothing more was said. _

Now as the leaves began to fall grey and brown from the trees around her, Kagome sighed over that familiar annoyance that played often at her companion's facial expression. For the first few years of their close, though rather stunted relationship, she avoided seriously questioning its presence. But particularly within the last several months, as they slowly closed in on Naraku in order to get the very last pieces of the jewel, she found herself focusing more on the half-demon's feelings toward her. To her despair, her observations indicated that barely anything had changed between them in the past two years they had traveled full-time together; if anything, he seemed suspiciously more agitated around her in the final weeks before they finally tracked down Naraku.

The Shikon-no-Tama rested heavily on her chest as she sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that night. Definitely, it was time to move on.

:

For miles, the slapping of freely swinging shudders and the rattling of partially opened doors echoed over the plains. Despite her feverish riding, the sun still fell from the sky more than an hour before Rin arrived. The manor was perched precariously upon the rocky landscape beyond the wide meadows. The sweet smell of the sun-dried grasses filled her head, but betrayed the scene before her: a cold, dark, and deserted mansion. As she dismounted, something twisted up deep within her, like a cord winding around and binding all her innards. Walking up to the gaping black entrance, which seemed to want to swallow her up like a giant mouth, Rin's sweat ran cold, and she was mesmerized by the steady beating of a fluttering wooden shutter.

Everything was amiss. Had he perhaps moved suddenly, leaving the shell of the mansion up-turned and ghostly-vacant? Rin peered deeply through squinting eyes into the night-shade of the front parlor, only to turn instinctively in horror and notice violent gouges at all edges of the door frame and across the paneled floors…as if something had been clawing…clawing. Immediately, the pace of her frozen heart quickened until the girl felt almost choked. Her shaking fingers skittered along the wall, feeling for a hanging lamp and a piece of flint. She sensed her own breath running ragged past her lips as she found and lit the flame.

Heavily dug scratches swirled across the floor, leading the girl through the center of the house. Then the scrapes blurred to smeared crimson. Blood. With a primitive lunge, Rin crossed to the corner of the nearly empty room and drew a dagger from the ancient sheath of a long passed warrior. She held it poised in the air above her shoulder, much like a scorpion readying its venomous tail. She crept deeper and more carefully. The bloodied floor panels creaked and light from the lantern slid through partially opened doors to reveal folds of cloth fanned across darkly lacquered wood.

The familiar pattern of his clothes caught in her vision.

Shunning all caution, Rin pounded forward to throw open the battle-torn doors. She slid across the paneled-wood into a kneeling position beside him; the dagger and lantern clattered sharply against the hard wood. Chilled perspiration now poured down her face, and she noticed not her own wailing while her pale hands shifted through his robes with terror. Her body lurched backward suddenly and she was overcome with the urge to heave as bile rose in her throat. The body…was…the skin: grey and wilted…the wretched distortion…her eyes could barely recognize or comprehend.

"Why you wicked wretch! What have you done to Lord Sesshomaru?" Jaken's awful, enraged whine filled the room from all sides, as he wielded his staff in Rin's direction. "How dare you return to do this?" However, despite his sharpness, the little servant was taken well aback when the girl turned to him, her tear-stained face twisting in rage.

Her voice wavered: "How could you let this happen to him?" The short demon stared in mute fear. "ANSWER ME!" she shrieked.

He began to stutter broken fragments about "dismissal" and "walking in the evening" and "only for an hour…or two," while she neglected him to wipe at newly fallen tears in between deep wheezing-wails. But both fell suddenly silent and snapped to attention, as a tortured breath rose painfully from the beaten body sprawled over the floor. His chest lifted slightly, although clearly constricted. While Jaken stood stony in disbelief, Rin, bolstered into action by this small shred of clinging life, sprang to stand.

Ordering Jaken not to leave until she returned, the girl strode from the mansion on the rocks.

::

A ray of gold light poured through a small crack in the wall of the village hut. Inuyasha awoke to its warmth against his face the morning after the funeral. He stood groggily, beginning to realize just how deeply he had slept for the first time in a few years, despite keeping his customary sitting-post by the door. Looking about the inside of the one-room travelers' hut in the morning glow, he noticed its emptiness. Kagome was gone. All of her things were absent, too. But two things he did see were a fold of paper in the center of the floor and the coveted Shikon jewel dangling in front of his chest on a plain piece of yarn. Grasping the little sphere as it hung from his neck like a secret and grabbing the note written in the priestess' hand, he hurried from the hut.

In the dewy morning air, he picked his way through the village already quivering with the work of many hands in gardens, fields, and at cooking pits. Kaede was already at the _jinja_ found at the far edge of the village. The hanyou rushed to her side, already producing the note and revealing the jewel. It was so perfectly round in his questioning, opened palm. Kikyo's younger sister looked up at him quizzically and accepted the note to read to him. But as her unpatched eye worked over the neatly formed characters on the slip of paper, her expression grew stern. Her mind floated back to her conversation with the young miko the prior night.

_"Well, I guess now that Naraku is gone and the jewel is returned to normal, I don't have much left to do here," Kagome stated through the silent autumn night as she pondered the golden color of the tea in her cup. _

_ "No, child, don't be silly," the old shrine maiden responded warmly, "of course you are always welcome here. You are the heroine of the villagers."_

_ "Yeah, I guess so," the girl said with a melancholy smile, and she sipped quietly from the cup._

After that Kagome rose to leave for the night, but her thanks and farewell now seemed more pronounced with finality to Kaede than they had the night before. The note lying in her wrinkled hands corroborated her present fear. The jewel hanging from the half-demon's neck confirmed it.

"It would seem that Kagome has left," Kaede stated finally.

"Well, yeah, duh. I can see that, but why do I have the jewel? The note says why, right?" Inuyasha questioned as Kaede turned back to preparing the shrine altar for the return of the Shikon-no-Tama.

"No. I assumed that was something that the two of ye discussed," Kaede responded in a harshly detached tone.

"She didn't say anything to me. All that was there was that note. Now what does it say, woman?" he demanded, becoming irritated.

"It is an order for you not to follow her, ever."

"What? What's that supposed to mean?" he sputtered.

"Kagome is not coming back. I did not realize it last night, but now, I am sure." She continued dusting.

"Well she's out of her mind if she thinks she just gets to leave without saying nothing to me about it!" He stormed from the shrine steps and into the forest. In moments, he dove into the ancient well surrounded by trees. But when he launched off of the bottom of it and aimed to come out at the Higarashi shrine, the closed wooden doors repelled him and he fell back to the floor of the Bone Eater's Well, sore and confused.

:

He wandered back to the village at twilight. He had wasted the whole day in the forest as rain fell constantly for hours after noon, and he tried to understand what was happening. He concluded at length, from her explicitly sudden departure, that the girl had no desire to return to the feudal period ever again.

Entering Kaede's hut uninvited after dark, he came to sit dripping next to the fire. She seemed to expect him, and poured him a cup of her hot, lustrous tea. They sipped in quiet for several minutes. He set his cup down and reached inside his damp, scarlet-colored collar.

"Here, it's not mine." He held out the jewel, staring seriously at his host.

"What, don't ye still want it, Inuyasha?" she questioned, startled.

"I do…. But you should have it. It was Kikyo's," he replied. She took it from him gingerly, and he rose to go.

"Inuyasha," she said as the hanyou reached to pull back the door covering. "Thank you."

Soundlessly, he slipped out into the rain.


	3. Chapter 2

**_Dying to Live_**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.**

Kohaku knelt by the rippling, shallow little pool in the moonlight. He guessed that it was around midnight or a little past, and the rain clouds that had masked the sky for more than half of the day were nearly cleared away so that small drops fell in only interspersed clusters. Ignoring the rain, which seemed unusually warm against his face for this late in the season, the young demon slayer wandered on and off of obscure forest cart trails, and occasionally sliced through overgrown patches of brush. He was traveling, but to where he did not know.

Tonight, he allowed himself to stop and rest. As he loosened the various leather straps on his armor and let his undergarments drop to the ground, the boy's soft hazel eyes hesitated over the sight of the worn, little leather bag. The jewel: he was going to have to tell Naraku that he had lost it. He knew that this thought should have haunted him, but somehow he realized that his soul entertained no intention of dwelling on any such nightmare; for instead, it seemed to endlessly flutter over a thousand and one dreams as brightly colored as a sea of ribbons.

Contentedly, Kohaku's hands worked the water in the pool until the day's dust vanished completely from his body. Once more, his roughened palms smoothed water over his right and then left shoulders. Tonight, he felt calm and unworried, and the muscles around his lower neck felt loose and soft. With three fingers, he massaged around his shoulder blades. And all at once, he realized what was amiss. As the boy's brow furrowed at the thought for one moment, he found his breath caught in his throat for the next.

_Could it be? _

Unblinkingly, he turned his back slowly to the water's reflection to find the skin pale and smooth. All of the cramping and scarring that generally brought that particular spot to his attention were absent. The jewel shard was gone! His thoughts raced and he realized how freely his mind was working. He was somehow freed from Naraku.

As if his discovery had somehow set an unseen clock ticking against him, Kohaku scrambled to dry and dress. Like an escapee seizing his chance, he hurried off into the forest brush. Blinded with adrenaline, he whacked with the villager's sickle into a nearby grove of bamboo, cutting a fast path past the decapitated stalks. This was Kohaku's state when he charged onto the wooded path on the other side of the bamboo. Perhaps, in that fraction of a second before he saw it, something within Kohaku sensed what was coming, so that he emerged facing the right spot in the woods.

The horse's screams pierced the air as it flew over a large peak in the trail barely 50 feet away. Its rider was driving the mare so hard that Kohaku had not even heard their approach. And now they were nearly upon him, so that Kohaku could see no way to avoid being trampled. He turned to shield himself from the blow, but instead clods of dirt and stones rained down upon him.

The mare had reared suddenly, stamping downward barely inches away from shattering his skull. The girl's voice came in broken shouts over the horse's hysterical straining, "Hurry, if you want to live!" Rin extended her arm imploringly, "_Please!_"

The sound of splintering wood saturated the area, and they both snapped around to face it. The horse gave another shrill cry.

The monster, a black dog-demon of immense size, crashed over the rise in the trail like a wave. With the indifference of a tsunami charging through the woods, the demon was flattening every tree within its huge, steam-boat sized path. Breathlessly, Kohaku seized Rin's arm, just as the horse had decided to bolt.

Moon-washed forest scenery swept past them in a blur now, and the girl's ragged hair flagged in and out of Kohaku's view as it lashed his face. He could barely tell the horse's pounding hooves apart from the beating of his own heart, while the air rushing past his ears added chaotically to the demon's crashing. His eyes stung from the speed, yet Kohaku could tell that they were climbing higher into the wooded foothills; the blurred trunks grew more slender and closer together with each second. While the demon seem to gain speed plowing down these more insubstantial trees, the horse was slowed by their shallow, knobby, mountain roots. Kohaku realized that even if the mare could have been driven faster, at this point, she had worked herself into such frenzy that the reigns had lost their purpose.

Snatching another glance back at the snarling beast, which was noticeably gaining on them, Rin turned her face so that Kohaku got a better look at her. "Hey," he shouted into her ear, "aren't you the girl who travels with the dog demon Sesshomaru?"

"Yes! I was!"

"Then why is he chasing you?" Kohaku asked.

"That's not him," Rin corrected. "Lord Sesshomaru's fur is white, not black!"

"Oh, then how did this one find you?"

She answered him in chopped sentences, "It didn't. I ran across it as it was feeding. It caught our scent. Oh, damn! This horse won't go much farther!"

Leaning out to get a better look at the horse, Kohaku noticed the white foam seeping from between its gritted teeth. However, worse yet was the change that had suddenly seized the landscape. To the right of the trail, a steep wall of flat rock was rising taller and taller above them. To the left, the ground had fallen away sickeningly into a steep and rocky slope. Rin had also noticed the steep drop, and a cold sweat painted her whole face.

Staring down into the valley again, Kohaku could not even see past the first ten feet. Still, he made his suggestion: "What if we jump from the horse and try roll down to the bottom?"

"What?" Rin said, sounding strangled. "What if there are rocks are at the bottom?"

"What if there aren't?"

Together they turned to look back at the massive dog demon. Now barely 20 feet away, it was mad with hunger. They could even see strings of saliva dangling from its snarling mouth.

Still turned so as to look back, Rin and Kohaku were jolted forward without notice, and thrown uncomfortably against the back of the horse's neck. Here, the scrubby trees grew so close together, that the ground had become a web of gnarled roots. Again, the horse tripped. Any moment they would be snapped in half by the monster's fangs.

"Let's jump!" Kohaku yelled. White with fear, Rin stared down the slope and nodded minutely.

"Alright! On 'three!' One! Two! Three!"

The dog demon issued one last tremendous howl before the final strike. Yet, even before it could surge upon its pathetic prey, Kohaku and Rin had already fallen into the darkness below.

::

Three days after Kagome's abrupt departure, two boys and a young girl arrived at the travelers' hut at the outskirts of town with a message for Inuyasha. The half-dog demon had remained in the village wandering the streets aimlessly by day and returning to the empty traveler's hut by night. Admitting it to no one, and barely to even himself, he was waiting impatiently for Kagome's return, which appeared less likely with each passing day. So when these three children arrived at the hut, they seemed to break a desolate silence. Inuyasha found his voice raspy with disuse: he had hardly spoken to anyone since leaving Kaede's hut in the rain.

The children all wore shrine uniforms, the smallest of whom was the girl, who wore the customary red and white. Judging by their appearance, Inuyasha figured at once that they had been sent by Kaede. After bowing respectfully, the little girl recited her message: in three days' time the village would hold the ceremony for the Shikon-no-Tama. Kaede and the village headman could see waiting no longer for Lady Kagome. If she did not return in three days, the village called upon Inuyasha to act in her stead during the ceremony and return the Jewel to the shrine.

When the child concluded finally with a shy _"Sore dake desu,_" Inuyasha stood stunned into silence. Hadn't Kaede considered, at the very least, how deeply perverse and ironic his participation would be? Almost 65 years ago, he had been the one to set fire to the shrine, steal the Jewel, and cause the death of its guardian, Kikyou. Inuyasha saw absolutely no way that Kaede could seriously want to put the Shikon-no-Tama back in his clutches for even a second. _Really! Just what the hell was going on around here anyway?_

Now he really wished that Kagome would hurry and come back.


	4. Chapter 3

**_Dying to Live_**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

Sango's hair hung around her face like a pair of rumpled black curtains as she leaned against the splintered shoji door. From where Miroku sat behind a rather battered writing desk, she looked very tired, and the dark patches under her eyes had a sort of sickly green appearance in the dim light. He felt similar marks forming beneath his own gray eyes, as he peered lovingly across the room at this tousled mess of a girl. It was still so early. It couldn't have been more than four and a half incense sticks burnt since the beginning of the day; Kagome would have called it "4:30 a.m."

"I'm so sorry, Miroku," she pouted as she dragged the door shut and shuffled across the room. "That's three days in a row now! I don't know why I've been so sick," she whined as she collapsed back into her bedding. By her pillow sat the wooden bucket Miroku had awoken to find her hurling into.

"Not at all, Sango, dear. I'm just starting to get a little worried about you," he responded, while trying to suppress a yawn.

"It's gotta be something about the food here, or something I picked up from one of the other guests, because it didn't start until we got here," she said as she pulled the blankets up to her chin. Miroku thought that she looked very cute, despite the fact that the sight of her getting sick was still fresh in his mind.

"Miroku, let's get out of here, today," she pled again for the sixth time in two days. "I'm telling you: I don't think the inn keeper keeps things up very well."

"Yes, but what if you're sick, my love? It could be a while before we reach another inn. And if it's something that needs to be treated at by a doctor, we don't want to travel too much farther from Nagoya," Miroku reminded her.

"I know, but I'm not sick! It's just this place…" she groaned, but as she allowed the last bit to trail, Miroku knew that sleep was about to reclaim her.

For the next hour Miroku sat up at the little desk penning sutras. Sango and he had been on their way to Mt. Hiei for about a week now. As he worked on a sutra designed for paralyzing trolls, he thought about how long they had talked about one day making this trip. They had looked forward to visiting the enormous temple that guarded Kyoto from the north and the hot springs located around the area. It was because of this advanced planning that they had been able to leave very early the morning after Naraku's funeral ceremony.

But then Sango got sick after just four days of travel, and Miroku started to wonder if they hadn't set out a little too carelessly. He hadn't even packed any herbal remedies. And it had been too late when he realized that most of the leaves had fallen from the trees, meaning that the nights were getting too cold for sleeping outside. They had been stuck at this somewhat tattered inn for the last few days expecting Sango's illness to pass quickly, but as the monk sat groggily watching the dancing flame of the candle before him, he decided that tomorrow they should back-track to Nagoya and see a doctor… Sleepily, he yawned. Perhaps, he could crawl back under the covers beside Sango and catch another hour of sleep…

However, just as he stood, from outside their room came the loud clattering of the enormous shoji door, which served as the main entrance for the entire inn. Unfortunately, he and Sango had received the room closest to the main door because the inn had been otherwise full when they arrived. So for the last few days, Sango and Miroku had suffered the inn keeper's loud, gravelly shouting as he sent one exhausted traveler after another back into the cold, away from the crowded inn. Expecting more of the same, Miroku preemptively covered his ears as he made his way to bed.

Despite the sound being muffled by his palms, Miroku still heard the sand-papery strains of the old man's hollering. Unable to turn back the covers without at least one free hand, the monk uncovered his ear just in time to hear a younger, pleading voice.

"Sir, please!" the voice of the boy began. "I beg of you not to turn us away! Can't you see how cold and badly injured she is?"

"I can see that alright!" the old inn keeper barked. "Which is more reason for me to turn you out! I don't need woman beaters staying at my inn!"

"What? Sir, I swear to you, I didn't do this to her!" the boy responded, sounding desperate at the accusation. "She fell-"

"No better!" the craggy old man cut him off. "Then that means that you're careless and can't look after your women properly! Now, get out of my inn!"

Now, Miroku was standing right behind the paneled shoji, wondering if he should open it.

"Sir!" the boy still begged, his voice cracking.

"Now out, before I push you out!" the old man threatened, his large, pock-marked nose just barely inches from the youth's face. But the boy did not move. Just then, the hush of a shoji door calmly slid open broke some of the intensity.

When Miroku stepped into the hall, he barely noticed all of the guests leaning out from their doors, peering at the scene. In fact, when Miroku first spoke, he even failed to recognize the boy.

"There you are, my boy!" Miroku exclaimed, moving toward the youth like he knew him. As he moved closer, Miroku noticed the girl draped over the boy's shoulder: her face was swollen and covered with dark bruises and scratches. He had to admit, she looked very badly beaten.

"But, by Buddha! What happened?" Miroku questioned loudly. Then, before opening his mouth to explain, the boy gave Miroku a meaningful look. Suddenly the monk recognized him. Still, Miroku, didn't give Kohaku a chance to explain the girl's injuries. Instead, he stepped between the inn keeper and the young demon slayer.

"Good inn keeper, please forgive the hassle this has caused!" Miroku apologized loudly and deliberately. "When I checked in, I should have mentioned that I was waiting for another party!"

"What?" the old man fumbled, still trying to grasp the monk's involvement in this situation.

By this point, Miroku already had the door to his and Sango's room open and had ushered Kohaku inside. Bowing dramatically, Miroku added, "Please, feel free to charge me the extra fee for another two guests later! But for now, I beg your pardon." And with that, he shut the door with a snap.

:

Despite all of Inuyasha's wishing, the next three days slipped by quickly. Though Inuyasha did not even enter the village long enough to reject Kaede's foolish plans, let alone accept them, the children reappeared at the hut. However, this time they arrived just before dusk, bearing burning candles of white wax in ornate golden holders. All three children's faces were painted with ceremonial make-up and solemn expressions. While the boys now wore black and white silks and black pointed hats, the small girl now wore a vestment of pure white embroidered with white maple leaves. Her lips were colored red and her hair was bound with white ribbons and flowers.

Stepping barefoot out of the house and down into the yard, Inuyasha also realized that the children were not alone but accompanied by a procession of at least twenty others. At the head of the group stood a few young miko, all dressed like the first, holding clusters of silver purification bells. Next stood a rank of young men holding staffs and dressed as apprentice priests, followed by a modest palanquin, and a group of five or six soldiers.

Eyeing the soldiers apprehensively, Inuyasha knelt down so that he could be eye level with the girl. Softly, he began, "Listen, honey, why don't you and your little friends just run off back to the village now? Tell Kaede I appreciate what she's doing, but I can't—"

"Begging your pardon, Inuyasha-sama," Inuyasha flinched a bit at the honorific, "but Lady Kaede anticipated your resistance, and told me to respond by saying that Inuyasha-sama does not have a choice. Someone must return the Shikon Jewel to the shrine, and it must be you." Then, glancing discreetly to the side she shrewdly added, "And the soldiers will see to it."

Now the shock of the soldiers' presence at last caught up with Inuyasha's amazement at the incredible wit possessed by such a tiny girl. As he rose again, the little miko's face looked up imploringly into his. "Alright, let's just go get this over and done with fast."

"_Inuyasha-sama, doumo arigatou gozaimasu,_" she replied, bowing respectfully. "Now, if you would, there's a palanquin—"

But Inuyasha interrupted, "Hey, I said I would come, but there's no way I'm letting a bunch of kids carry me around on that thing. I can walk just fine!"

She sweetly acquiesced with a bow.

Led by the three children, Inuyasha allowed himself to be brought into the procession behind the group of young priests, but in front of the palanquin. In high-pitched quavering Japanese, one of the priests at the front of the rank issued the ceremonial order to proceed. The young miko began to shake their bells with coordinated broad, sweeping arm motions, while the priests struck the dirt path rhythmically with their staffs. The clacking of the horses hooves added to the music of their movement.

To Inuyasha, the evening had taken on a dream-like quality. The entrancing tinkling of the bells reminded him of the muffled sound that falling snow makes on otherwise silent winter nights. It made him feel as if he was some place very far off, sleepily buried in a pile of that whispering snow. He now realized how accurately this image seemed to describe the past week; the days had blurred together, leaving him slow and unfocused. With Kagome gone, and Sango and Miroku away on a pilgrimage to Mt. Hiei in the West, Inuyasha had suddenly felt very isolated. After five years of traveling around the country with the same people, he had forgotten how he had once lived alone for so long. With a twinge of anxiety, he kept wondering why this ceremony could not wait until Sango and Miroku returned. They did not even know yet that Kagome had gone home forever….

When the procession finally appeared over the hillside at the edge of the village, Kaede was already waiting. Even with her one eye patched, the old shrine maid recognized Inuyasha's blood-red haori from half-way across the village. _That's my girl Komiko-chan! I knew ye could do it! _Kaede silently thanked the feisty little miko she had sent to fetch him.

"Lady Kaede, begging your pardon," came a woman's voice. One of the village women had come up beside Kaede.

"Ay, Mrs. Sato, what do ye need?" Kaede asked, turning toward the woman.

"We have finished preparing Inuyasha's chambers," Mrs. Sato explained, "and the men have almost finished clearing and decorating the concourse leading onto the shrine grounds. Also, Mrs. Asao notified me that Lord Taka has nearly finished his evening meal at the headman's house."

"Very good, Mrs. Sato, many thanks," Kaede replied, but the woman did not leave. "Is there something else, Mrs. Sato?"

"Well, yes, there is actually," the woman confessed, as she fumbled with the hem of her yukata. "Lady Kaede, some of the other villagers and I have overheard some of Lord Taka's guards complaining about Inuyasha's participation in tonight's ceremony. They think it is bad form to allow a demon into a village where their master is staying. Apparently, his Lordship also has some reservations about allowing even a _half_-demon the sacred honor of handling the Shikon Jewel.

"I'm sorry!" Mrs. Sato cried when she finished. "I must seem so impertinent, but I just thought that you should know!"

"No, no, Mrs. Sato. Please do not be alarmed!" Kaede said to reassure her. "It's very understandable that Lord Taka has some concerns. We must not forget that Lord Taka has put forth a great deal of money and effort to honor our village and to expedite the safe return of the Jewel for our own protection. That is why I would not have invited Inuyasha to join us if I was not reasonably certain of his cooperation."

Just as Mrs. Sato was excusing herself to return to the preparations, the procession arrived in the town square a short distance away from Kaede. To the west, the sun was just about to set. "Good evening, Inuyasha," Kaede called to the hanyou, as he unceremoniously broke rank and marched in her direction. "So, ye decided to come after all, did ye?"

"Old lady, you really must have a few screws loose, if you think I'm gonna go through with this thing!" he started to bellow even at several paces away. "And what's the big idea—sending guards after me?" he added as he pulled up beside her.

Kaede turned to walk, and he immediately fell into pace with her. "Have you considered at all how strange what you're asking me to do is?" the hanyou raged, "And what about me? Have you considered how it might make _me_ feel to do this? Hey, aren't you going to answer me?"

"My, Inuyasha, I didn't think it was necessarily like ye to contemplate such ethics," Kaede replied, causing the hanyou to redden. "Listen to me, Inuyasha. The soldiers were not my choice. They are guards sent by the local lord himself, who is actually staying in the village tonight. A good number of people, Lord Taka included, are assembled in the village for this evening's ceremony. Without Kagome here and with no way to contact her, I had little choice when the local minister came to me earlier this week about the Shikon Jewel. And I feel it is only right that one of those whom last possessed the Jewel also be the one to return it to its rightful place. Don't ye agree, Inuyasha?"

"No, because that would leave only me, and I'm not doing it! I don't see why you can't just wait for Sango and Miroku to come back. One of them can do it!" he complained.

"I'm afraid not, Inuyasha. Lord Taka's ministers have made it very clear that they want the Jewel returned immediately," Kaede explained. "Besides, neither Sango nor Miroku played near as important a role in reassembling the Shikon-no-Tama as ye have."

"Well, I don't care! I'm not doing it!" Inuyasha shouted.

"Could it be that ye are scared to do it, Inuyasha?" Kaede pried.

"What? No!" Inuyasha spluttered, looking indignant.

"Then, why won't ye do it?" she questioned again.

"'Cause I don't feel like it, that's why," he stated, his arms crossed and his head tilted back defiantly.

"Well, now, that seems like an awfully petty—" Kaede began.

"Alright, alright already!" Inuyasha interrupted, stamping his foot impatiently. "I'll do it if it'll get you to leave me alone!"

"Ay, now that's the spirit, Inuyasha!" Kaede smiled, and she reached up to clap him on the shoulder.

Grimacing, he allowed her to touch him, and she led him to the front of one of the village's larger buildings. Inuyasha flinched when he recognized it.

"The public bathhouse! Uh-uh! No way, I'm good enough as I am!" he growled.

"No, ye are not! Now, in ye go!" and giving the half-demon a good shove, the fiery, old shrine maid pushed him off balance long enough for two of village's strongest men to emerge from the shadows. Together, this burly pair carried the wriggling hanyou over the threshold by his wrists and ankles.

Once inside, they traveled along several short corridors, mostly unimpeded since the other bathers had already scattered as soon as they heard Inuyasha's bellowed curses coming their way. With each passing corridor, Inuyasha could feel the humidity building, until at last they arrived at the main bathroom. To Inuyasha's despair, the two huge men managed to elbow the shoji door open without once releasing their hold on him. Here the air was thick with hot mist, which dimmed the lantern light, causing the room to be somewhat dark.

"Alright," the man holding Inuyasha's ankles began, "in a moment we're going to let go of you. Then please remove your clothes before you enter the bath. Now if you're ready to cooperate…" But as soon as the men released Inuyasha, it appeared that they had badly misinterpreted the hanyou's silence.

Within milliseconds the half-dog demon lunged forward crazily, "HELL NO! There's no way you're gettin' me—" But the scuffle had resumed, and after several minutes of determined pushing and shoving and rough handling, Inuyasha was at last sent sailing, naked, into the hot bath. Relieved at accomplishing this humiliating task, the men hurriedly gathered the hanyou's clothes and left the room.

Moments later, Inuyasha emerged splashing and shouting obscenities, which ricocheted off of the walls of the cavernous bath. Generally, this particular bath would have been shared by multiple men at once; however, Kaede had wisely reserved it for Inuyasha's sole use as a matter of politeness to the villagers and less so to the half-demon himself.

_ What the _hell_ just happened? _Inuyasha's mind raced as he struggled to cough up jasmine scented bathwater. The stuff was all in his eyes, too. Now furiously rubbing them with the heels of his hands, he thought, _What the f-! Did I just allow those two stupid, human dolts to nearly drown me? _

At last, the stinging in his eyes was subsiding. Feeling embarrassed by his sudden nakedness, he stayed crouched beneath the water up to his chin. He blinked twice very deliberately, just to be certain that his eyes really were clear. At first, it was hard to tell because the thick mists that hung everywhere gave the impression that he was looking at the room through translucent gauze.

Now that he could see again, his sense of panic abated to give way to frustration. Slapping the flat surface of the water with the palm of his hand, the soggy hanyou whined aloud, "_Damn! Why couldn't I shake 'em off?_"

At that moment, the answer came drifting into his view on the disturbed ripples of the foggy bath water. His own long, black locks came floating up to remind him: the moonless night. Then he understood. _That sly, old witch…_


	5. Chapter 4

**_Dying to Live_**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. (This chapter edited on 3 Feb. 2013)**

"_Kohaku?_" Miroku breathed into the dark.

"Yes, yes! That's me," the young slayer's shaky voice responded.

Miroku moved across the room to relight the candle. Its warm glow cast shadows across their faces, but at last they could see each other clearly.

"What are you doing here? How did you find us?" Miroku asked in a breathless whisper.

"I—I wasn't looking…" Kohaku said with a sort of startled look at Miroku. He tried shift the girl on his back into a better position. His back was getting so tired.

_Of course that would sound like a strange question_, Miroku thought to himself, as he noticed Kohaku's fidgeting. "Oh, here, let's make a place to lay her down." Together they laid her on the blankets next to Sango, who was still sleeping.

Crouching down to rest his exhausted back and legs for the first time in many hours, Kohaku rubbed his face wearily and sighed as his muscles began to painfully uncoil. Without looking up he asked, "And the girl—you must recognize her, too…"

Indeed, Miroku already had the candle lifted above her, as he had started to evaluate her condition. However, now, he bent closer to her face. He drew in a sharp breath, as he examined the aged features of the familiar girl. "Yes! Her name is Rin. But how?" he asked, as he brushed aside a few strands of her hair that had stuck to the dried blood on her forehead.

"We met once when I was serving Naraku. Three days ago we met again in the forest," Kohaku explained. He went on to tell Miroku about the enormous dog demon, the nightmarish ravine that they had leapt into, the last few freezing days and nights of wandering continuously through the forest as he carried Rin on his back, and, finally, arriving at the inn. Neither of them had eaten in two days because Kohaku had been too afraid to leave her alone while he hunted for food, so earlier that day Rin, weak with cold and hunger, drifted into unconsciousness. He pointed out all of the girl's major wounds, explaining that two of them had been punctures from sharp sticks apparently buried in the slope that they had fallen down. After looking over one of these deep gouges, Miroku rose to go in search of the inn's staff to see if he could get water and any kind of bandaging and healing herbs to dress and clean her wounds. As he turned to go, the monk also reassured the boy that he would return with food.

Despite the harbinger of Rin's alarming appearance, Miroku felt somewhat excited at the thought of Sango finally being reunited with Kohaku; so, forgetting that it was still very early, he allowed the shoji door to shut with a rattling thud. Feeling physically at the point of collapse and even more wearied by this strange meeting with the monk whom he vaguely recognized, Kohaku dragged himself over to the writing desk. With his elbows on the desktop, he cradled his face in his hands and blew out a long, slow breath.

Then, beyond the ring of light cast by the candle left burning atop the desk, Kohaku heard the hush of blankets shifting. "Rin?" he asked, peering into the darkness. A feminine hand emerged from the shadows and came to rest on the floor mats. As the young woman leaned into the light, her features seemed to slowly melt into view.

"Kohaku?" Sango's startled voice whispered.

:

A cool, autumn night breeze blew the wisps of hair around Kagome Higurashi's face as she walked home with her three friends, Eri, Ayumi, and Yuka. On this evening, they were dressed in fall colored kimono to celebrate a historical festival put on by their neighborhood. At the head of the group were Yuka and Eri, who were snacking on roasted sweet potatoes, as they chatted noisily about the day's events. Behind them, Kagome walked next to Ayumi, who was much quieter.

Since making her final decision to remain at home in the current era, even in just a week, Kagome had found it was much easier to spend long periods of time with Ayumi than with Yuka and Eri. So, for the last few afternoons, just she and Ayumi and had gone out for coffee after Ayumi came back from class at her university's downtown campus. While practically editing out all of the details, Kagome had decided to confess to Ayumi that she had sort of "broken up" with her "bad boy" boyfriend. Even though Ayumi knew too little about the situation to really know how Kagome was feeling, Kagome was glad to have a friend to talk to. The past week had been so awful. Besides having no idea what she was going to do now that she was back in her own time, she was homesick for the feudal era, and she really missed—

_No! I do not miss him!_ Kagome thought to herself. She was not going to miss him. But as she argued with herself, a little boy dressed in a scarlet-red haori ran down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, and she caved again.

"Kagome? Kagome?" came a voice.

"Huh? What?" Kagome responded, snapping to attention.

"Where do you go when you start staring off like that?" Ayumi asked. Then leaning in close, she whispered, "Were you thinking about You-Know-Who again?"

Blinking, Kagome realized that Ayumi must be referring to the ex-boyfriend. Unfortunately, she was right.

At last, the girls arrived at Kagome's house. After greeting Kagome's family who were eating dinner in the kitchen and preparing a pot of hot tea, the four climbed the stairs to Kagome's room. As her friends knelt down on the floor, Kagome went to crack open her bedroom window to let in some fresh air. Outside the leaves on the Tree of Ages shivered in the breeze. Taking a deep breath, Kagome turned from the window to rejoin her friends.

:

After what seemed like an absolute eternity to Inuyasha, the bath house keeper, a slightly hunched, elderly man, appeared at the edge of the tub. Bearing a dry towel and yukata, he passed one and then the other to the now dark-haired, young man.

Having surrendered all humility, Inuyasha cringed into the unfamiliar cotton robe and followed the old man down several more corridors. Blessedly, the humidity dispersed, as they travelled toward the back of the building, where they reached a hall of more private rooms normally reserved for post-bath lounging. Looking about as they walked, Inuyasha almost knocked into the frail, little man when he stopped abruptly before one of the doors. As the man slid it open, it became apparent to Inuyasha that this room had been specially prepared for him.

Fine cushions lay upon the floor, and trays bearing every grooming utensil imaginable were arranged upon a low table. By the back wall, a long white under shirt with ties and a pair of black, silken, pleated trousers hung on formal, wooden racks. The bath keeper offered him hot tea, but when Inuyasha rejected it, the old man put the steaming pot aside and exited the room.

Unsure of what would next happen, Inuyasha waited atop one of the cushions and glanced somewhat anxiously about the room. His eyes came to rest on series of combs and brushes on one of the trays, and he grimaced; he was definitely going to confront the next person who entered the room about all of this grooming business.

However, Inuyasha's plans were soon shattered when the door slid open once again, and in stepped a wrinkled, old woman followed by a pale, trembling girl. The latter, who nervously kept her eyes on the floor, could have been no more than 15 years old and was apparently terrified. Both were dressed as servitors, and the elder seemed to be the younger's mentor. Together, the two women chose tools from the trays on the table and set upon Inuyasha.

With a meaningful look and a nod of her silver-haired head, the older woman assigned the girl to Inuyasha's hair; she herself set to work upon further cleansing his hands and dirty fingernails.

Looking anemic, the fair girl approached him on her knees, and Inuyasha soon realized that it he who intimidated her. Although he could not see her hand quaking as it hovered over the crown of his head, he soon felt the slow, jittery stokes of the comb, as she fought to pass it through his hair.

Predictably, on the first knot it reached the comb snagged and fell out of the girl's hand. The old woman's eyes flicked only momentarily to the fallen comb, but otherwise she continued working. On the other hand, Inuyasha, who masked a small wince of pain, sighed and tilted his head so as to look at the girl out of the corner of his eye. Noticing this, she froze.

Having seen a similar look upon Kagome's face before, he felt his heart melt a little, and he did not have to tell himself to smile a bit as he said, "Look, I'm not gonna bite you." With that he turned away, but shortly after he heard the girl breathe again, and when she resumed combing, it was with much greater smoothness. When at last she finished, his dark hair was trimmed and shone with camellia oil. Finally, she twisted it into a perfect braid that ended just above his waist.

He and the two women exchanged bows before the latter left the room. However, he had barely righted himself when they were immediately followed by two maids, each holding a lacquer tray. The first tray bore a decanter of hot sake, which one maid poured into a small cup. From the second tray, the other maid served to him a festive meal of seasonal raw fish, soup, seaweed, pickled vegetables, and steamed rice. As much as Inuyasha still detested the idea of returning the jewel, he had to admit that the villagers' service made it a little easier.

When he finished his meal, the two little maids crept forward to clear away the trays. He watched again as they disappeared out the same door as had the rest of the servers, the same one through which he had entered. Therefore, he was very startled when Kaede's voice reached him from behind: "My Inuyasha—with ye cleaned and groomed like that, perhaps at last, I can see what my sister did see in ye."

The old girl chuckled as the back of Inuyasha's neck flushed, causing him to delay a bit in turning to face her. When he did, he found that there was a rather discreet door there, connecting that chamber to the next. Kaede stood on the threshold smiling in what Inuyasha considered to be an annoying way. Crossing his arms in customary defiance, he retorted, "Ha, ha. I bet you think this is pretty funny putting me through all of this hassle. But you sure play dirty, old woman!"

"If ye are referring to the moonless night, then I must say, fair is fair, Inuyasha," Kaede chided. "However, my plan would not have worked nearly so well if ye hadn't forgotten that it was tonight. Truly, my only reason for planning the ceremony for the moonless night was to please Lord Taka: he does not like demons, and so I thought he might find yer presence more agreeable if ye were human."

But Inuyasha frowned and huffed, "Oh, and being defenseless is supposed to make me feel better when I've already had the guy's soldiers breathing down my neck the whole way here? Sheesh!"

To this, Kaede just sighed and said, "Oh, just calm yerself and put on this shirt and trousers. Then meet us in the next room. The villagers have something they'd like for ye to have."

:

When Sango had seen Kohaku's face illuminated in the candlelight, it was everything she could do to keep from leaping at him. Still, she had allowed herself to reach out and grasp his hand between hers. At first he had looked surprised, but when he remembered her smile from his dreams his expression softened, and he spoke from his heart: "I've been hoping to see your kind face again." Patiently, he waited as she wept for a while in the dim light, understanding that these were tears of relief for him but not knowing why.

After a while, Miroku returned having wrested some welcome food and supplies from the inn's staff. Starving, Kohaku inhaled two bowls of rice topped with fermented soybeans, as well as a few morsels of baked fish that Miroku had managed to scavenge. Although excited to hear how he and Rin came to be there, Sango and Miroku let the boy eat, while they surveyed Rin's wounds. Then, he proceeded to tell them everything from his discovery of how the jewel shard had miraculously left his back to how he and Rin had escaped the dog demon in the woods. Meanwhile, Sango (who had to reassure her husband thrice that she was no longer ill) listened intently from behind a screen as she stitched up the deep wounds on Rin's lower leg and thigh. When this was done, Miroku crushed up some herbs from the kitchen and made a warm broth, which he administered to the unconscious girl. Sango cleansed and dressed her brother's milder wounds.

As he fed Rin the herbal broth, Miroku massaged the girl's slender throat in order to help her swallow. The conversation in the room was just turning toward the subject of Rin's mysterious appearance when suddenly, she trembled and began to cough on the liquid. Startled, the monk set the bowl aside and helped her lean forward to clear her throat. Drawing closer, Sango and Kohaku also watched, as her eyes fluttered open.

For a moment, she seemed to stare off into space, until her pupils constricted startlingly. As if plunged into icy water, she gasped in a high pitched voice, "Sesshomaru, Lord Sesshomaru! Please! Please!"

Kohaku was the first to respond. "She might be concussed," he tried to explain, speaking over her. "After the fall, she did awake, but she kept drifting in and out of sleep and mumbling about her lord. Occasionally, she became agitated like this—Rin! Rin! It's all right!" he spoke loudly to her, gently tapping her face.

As he reassured her, the girl's breathing slowly steadied, and her body relaxed. Blinking, she recognized Kohaku's worried face, but it was on a different face that Rin's gaze finally settled. "It's a miracle," she breathed. Everyone gasped, as she lunged haphazardly for the front of Miroku's robes. Unsure whether to feel threatened by this attack on her beloved, Sango lurched toward the girl's grasp.

However, Rin was oblivious as she gazed fixedly at Miroku, and tears welled up in her eyes. "Thank God! Somehow the kami have brought you to me!" she choked.

Shocked at this proclamation, the monk managed to untangle her clenched fingers from his garments. She helped a little by also choosing to let go, pushing herself into a sitting position with renewed energy. "What do you mean 'brought you to me?'" Miroku asked her curiously.

"A few days ago…" she began and then hesitated, frowning. "Well, at least, I think it was a few days ago, I set out from Lord Sesshomaru's castle in search of Inuyasha and his mate, the priestess. Are they with you?"

Miroku frowned. "I'm afraid that Inuyasha and Kagome are not traveling with us right now," Miroku responded, to which Rin looked crushed.

"Then, please, Monk," she begged him, clasping her hands together as if in prayer. "_You_ must come with me! I fear that Lord Sesshomaru has been mortally wounded. I beg of you: if he still lives, help me save his life!"


	6. Chapter 5

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.**

**Note 1: I think I should begin this chapter, by saying that this fic is probably going to be about a lot of things. Right now, the genre is marked as romance and family and the pairing is Rin and Sesshomaru. This is all true. But you have probably already found that I really enjoy spending time on characterization, so I like to write a lot about the whole central cast of the show. In this chapter, I delve into a lot of Inuyasha's thoughts and how I perceive him developing into a deeper character. I believe that under that tough exterior, he has a lot of internal conflict about who he is, who he wants to be, and what he thinks about himself. Don't worry, SesshomaruRin lovers, they are going to be in it more and more as we go along. **

**Note 2: The small, hourglass-shaped, hand drum I refer to later in this chapter is a **_**kotsuzumi**_. **It is a traditional Japanese instrument featured in folk music. It has a very interesting sound when played. You can check out a good demo of it on Youtube with the keyword "kotsuzumi".**

**:::**

"What do you mean, 'if he still lives'?" Miroku asked, looking down at the prostrated girl. "Has something happened to Sesshomaru?"

"Yes, I believe that he was viciously attacked," Rin ground out, her voice suddenly breaking and turning tearful.

"By what?" Sango asked, now leaning further in again to join their conversation. Kohaku had also drawn closer, coming to stand by his sister's shoulder.

"I do not know," she answered and then proceeded to recount the horrible scene she walked into upon returning to the castle. Before she concluded though, with her voice gusty and each word weighted with the firmest resolve, she said, "But then suddenly, thank all the kami, he drew one weak but determined breath. And in that moment, I knew that he must have lived for a reason: I had to go find someone to help him!" Rin finished powerfully.

The monk sighed, as he looked into the girl's eyes glistening with tears. As was notoriously known, he had always had a soft spot for women in need, but Miroku also really wanted to believe in her appeal, which seemed sincere. He glanced sideways at his new wife before looking back at Rin. "Well, his injuries definitely sound extreme…" he stated hesitantly. "Clearly, I think we all know that this could not have been any ordinary attacker to do this to Sesshomaru… It must have been a very strong demon. Did Sesshomaru encounter any particularly troublesome or vengeful rivals recently?"

"No, no! Actually things have been quite quiet recently. In fact, I think Lord Sessomaru had even started to feel restless recently for this reason. I can think of no instances which could possibly have brought about an assault like this… Please, just thinking about how horrible his condition is, I don't feel I can waste even another minute explaining what happened!" Rin exclaimed, wringing her hands before Miroku and the others.

"Miroku, perhaps we should go see what this is all about. It could be a new threat in the region that we should know about," Sango remarked, although barely veiling how little she liked the sound of the whole situation.

"No, _we_ should not go see anything," Miroku replied firmly, emphasizing the 'we'. "_You_ need to be seeing a doctor in Nagoya, which is at least two days behind us already, and Sesshomaru's castle is completely in the other direction."

"Miroku, would you please stop! I've just been a little unwell: it's just a little food poisoning. The pantry at the inn is probably awful!" Sango snapped, although the slight strain in her voice revealed that she too was less than certain about the cause of her sickness.

"Sango, my love," Miroku addressed her more softly, as he turned and took her shoulders in his hands, "Please, look at you concerned husband. I only want to take you to a doctor to make sure you are okay."

"I know, but…" Sango caved, looking up Miroku.

"What about Lord Sesshomaru?" Rin cut in, while Sango and Miroku searched each other's eyes for some consensus over what to do. Inuyasha's icy half-brother was hardly someone they felt particularly bound to help; yet, if the attack was as bad as Rin described, then the threat might be too terrible to be overlooked.

"I think we're both right," Sango finally conceded, as she looked a little worryingly into her beloved's caring grey eyes. "I will go back to Nagoya, and you should follow Rin to Sesshomaru's."

"But Sango, what if you get sicker on the way? I know you could normally take apart any foe in your path, not to mention your poor spouse, but I don't want you to go alone," Miroku replied.

"I could go with her," Kohaku piped up a little shyly, as he regarded Sango.

"Yes, of course. Kohaku will be able to help me should anything happen. And it would be an excellent chance for us to catch up a bit," Sango added meaningfully, looking at her brother, who gave a small smile.

Although Kohaku had only just come back to them that morning from having spent the last few years in the clutches of their greatest enemy, Miroku had to admit that he felt much more at ease with this plan. The thought of Sango going back to Nagoya with someone to help her, even if it was Kohaku (on the one hand, he was her beloved brother and probably in need of some quality family time, but on the other hand, he still needed to be checked over to ensure he was not somehow still under the influence of darker forces) seemed better to Miroku than taking her in her weakened state right into the aloof Ruler of the West's lair.

And if Miroku was really honest with himself, he had allowed a small spark of excitement to kindle within him, and which their highly active romantic life over the past few months would seem to support, that maybe his lovely wife was in fact bearing his child! No, indeed, he absolutely could not allow her to endanger herself over this curious problem with Inuyasha's less than trustworthy half-brother…

"Hmm, alright," Miroku said, having turned over his thoughts long enough. "Rin, I will go with you to see what can be done for Sesshomaru, while Sango and Kohaku will go back to Nagoya. We will set out early tomorrow."

"Thank you so much!" Rin cried out, as out of relief and gratitude, she permitted herself to smile for the first time in days.

:

The next morning before dawn, the little group in the inn awoke to a simple breakfast and tea before setting out, (except for Sango, who spent about half an hour heaving into a wooden bucket, and Miroku, who gently rubbed her back and helped hold her hair when he remembered to feel guilty that her sickness might be partially a result of his doing).

In the last few minutes, as they finished packing up the last of their things and preparing to go out into the pre-sunrise cold, Miroku and Sango sat a little apart from Rin and Kohaku to say their goodbyes. As they sat close together and facing each other, Miroku held each of Sango's hands in one of his and rubbed his thumbs over the soft, pale skin of her knuckles. On her palms, though, the battle-produced calluses reminded him of how strong and tough she could be. Even still, since they had finally decided to wed three months prior, thinking their hunt for Naraku might never end, he found himself feeling more and more committed to and protective of her.

"Be careful on your way to Nagoya, alright?" he said, looking into her eyes, to which she nodded.

"And I'll be sure to keep an eye on Kohaku, too," she added. Miroku began to open his mouth to speak. However, she stopped him before he could say anything, having correctly anticipated his thoughts: "You have been very tactful, Miroku, not to mention any suspicions about Kohaku's sudden appearance yesterday, but I have also been a little concerned that he might not be… totally himself yet. I'm unbelievably happy to see him alive, since we didn't really know what would happen to him after we got the last jewel shard back, but I still plan to keep my guard up until I'm a little more certain."

"I'm very glad to have him back, too. But I'm also glad to hear that you are being cautious," Miroku replied before going on a little nervously to what he really wanted to speak to Sango about. "Speaking of which, I haven't brought it up yet because I didn't want to jinx things, but yesterday I started to think, when I was urging you to see a doctor… do you think that despite all of this throwing up—"

"I might not really be _sick_ sick?" she said, finishing his question. A little smile crept across her lips. "Yes, that possibility dawned on me yesterday, too. I think maybe I was a little in denial: I'm not sure I'm fully ready yet, but the thought of a child _does_ make me feel really happy," she confessed, as she gently laid a hand across her stomach.

"But that also makes me feel really worried about you, Miroku," Sango continued, her face now showing her concern. "I don't really like the sounds of this thing with Sesshomaru. He's helped us a few times, but that hardly makes up for the all the times he's tried to kill Inuyasha and take the rest of us out in the process. I want to believe Rin, but I don't trust Sesshomaru at all. Please be careful while you're there," Sango said, taking his hands in hers again.

"I will," he agreed before they exchanged a kiss. "Wait for me at the inn in Nagoya?"

"Of course," she agreed, and then it was time to go.

::

Inuyasha grudgingly put on the white cotton under-kimono Kaede left for him before going on to the next room. Although, Inuyasha learned long ago not to expect much from anyone, he could not help but be curious about what the villagers could possibly want to give him. _Maybe a good bashing for all the times I helped to destroy their village over the last couple centuries – that'd really add to the evening_, he mused.

However, his acerbic thoughts were instantly dispersed when his eyes fell upon what hung in the center of the next chamber. It was formal men's kimono set: the robe-like shell in black silk with matching black hakama pants covered by a red, embroidered silk haori jacket. Inuyasha, who thought rarely much of anything about clothing, could not help but admire it.

"Inuyasha, this is our village head Arai-san, his daughter-in-law, and his grandson, Junpei. They wish to present this outfit as a gift to ye," Kaede explained, indicating the impressive set of garments.

The young man's eye brows shot up, and he gasped ever so slightly. "This-this is for me?" he asked, obviously surprised. He had barely owned any clothes in his life, let alone something like this.

"Inuyasha-sama, on behalf of the whole village, my family and I wish to present this formal kimono set to you to thank you for the great service you have done for our village over the last six years," the headman began. He smiled a little as he registered Inuyasha's initial disbelief at their gratitude for his help, before continuing, "Although, you were once a great plague on this village in the days that my father was village head, after you began your travels with Lady Kagome you protected this village on several occasions. Most important to me was the time you saved my grandson and daughter-in-law," Arai said, smiling warmly and indicating the woman and the small, shy boy.

_Geez, I can barely remember ever laying eyes on them, let alone saving their lives_, Inuyasha thought, feeling quite embarrassed by all the attention and generosity he clearly felt he hadn't earned. He was about to object, when Headman Arai continued to speak: "You were staying in the village with your friends waiting for Lady Kagome to return from her home. The village was attacked by a band of spider-head demons. They were going down every house in the village, indiscriminately thrashing roofs and walls here and there, looking for escaping people to prey on. Some people were badly injured in fallen debris that night. When I heard the splintering wood and screams, I came out of our home to see what was coming for us. Just as one of those huge, hairy monsters was darting toward our place, you ran up behind the beast and slayed it with that giant sword of yours.

"I will always remember how grateful I am to you for saving our home that night. Surely, that horrible demon would have crushed in the roof under which my daughter-in-law and grandson were sleeping, recovering from an illness. They would have been killed for certain. They are here today because of you, Inuyasha," the village head finished. Then he patted the small boy on the head who, at some point during the story, had taken to staring fascinatedly at the stranger before him. As Arai and his daughter-in-law added in their looks of deep admiration, Inuyasha felt himself blush uncharacteristically, unsure how to respond.

"I-I, well of course I was not going to let those stupid spider-heads keep wrecking everything!" the young man stammered, "But you don't have to go giving me clothes and stuff for every time I kill a demon!"

"Inuyasha, for once, just be comfortable accepting that ye've done something because ye knew that it was the right thing to do," Kaede chided him, her exasperation only half real as she chuckled inwardly at how flustered he had become. Turning to the headmen before Inuyasha could protest again, the old priestess asked, "Arai-san, would ye like to tell Inuyasha a bit more about his gift now?"

_There's more?_ Inuyasha's mind balked.

"Yes, of course," Arai replied with a glance at his daughter-in-law, who knelt down and, smiling, whispered something to little Junpei. The little boy, his attention having left Inuyasha for the moment, wriggled and smiled a toothy grin at whatever his mother said to him before pulling something thin and wrapped in a piece of black silk from inside his shirt. Looking very self-satisfied, he now boldly looked in Inuyasha's direction before bravely marching up to him and unfolding the layer of black silk. His mother and grandfather looked on proudly, as with two hands, the little boy excitedly lifted up the object for Inuyasha to accept. Inuyasha, bent down and reverently took the small offering, thinking of a time long ago when he himself had been as small and eager to please as young Junpei.

"_Domo_," he said, not wanting to disappoint the youngster. Once the item was in his own two hands, he finally saw what it was: a long strip of the same red silk that apparently made up the brand new haori jacket before him. Only now, he saw the exquisiteness of the embroidery: shining red thread made an intricate design of delicately twisting pine branches adorned with thin nettles against a background of subtly more textured and darker hued, scarlet silk.

"The women of the village worked very hard on this kimono set themselves, so it is perhaps not the finest tailoring in the country, but it was made with great care and admiration by people who wish to honor you for the time and effort you have sacrificed.

"As soon as we heard that you had returned the Shikon-no-Tama, several of us traveled to Edo with a chunk of the village purse in search of the right silk to make it for you. We also bought the materials for a special outfit for Lady Kagome," Arai paused at this point, thinking carefully about how he wanted to phrase what he said next, having inferred from Kaede that the miko's absence was a bit of a sensitive topic, "which we will hold for her until she returns."

Arai carried on, "In your hands, you hold the collar piece to the kimono. It was made specifically to match the haori jacket, which we thought should be as red as your iconic Robe of the Firerat. However, the red shade of the silk is also meant to recall all the villainous blood you and your friends labored to spill to recreate the Shikon Jewel. Likewise, the red embroidered nettles stand for the many seasons you have passed with us, enduring and unchanging through the years in your inhuman half. Finally the pure, white, cotton under-kimono reminds us all of your humble heritage and equally important human half. The cotton: for as legend holds, you are as much the son of the infamous dog daiyoukai Inu-no-Taisho as of the noble, but lower-ranking, human woman Izayoi. And the color white: for the pure goodness that thankfully found a space and grew in your inherently divided heart. May these clothes always remind you not least of our gratitude, but most of all, of the best parts within yourself by which you earned it," Arai concluded, his eyes twinkling. He felt satisfied that his speech had produced the desired effect, judging by the slightly shocked, contemplative look on the young man's face.

Indeed, between the grandness of the gift and the village head's heartfelt words, and finally his incredibly candid but sincere entreaty, Inuyasha was left utterly speechless. He had nothing to give back to these people, certainly, at least not at the moment. And if he still had the chance to become a full demon (aside from using the Shikon Jewel, which he had decided over the last two days, that he would not attempt to steal again), he still would, wouldn't he?

Or perhaps not…. He had always dreamed of being able to change himself, to override the internal conflict that had caused him to struggle with his nature from birth. It had to be the one constant element in his life.

At first seeking the power that he believed that demon-hood could yield, he had dedicatedly wreaked havoc throughout the countryside until he took a fascination in the Shikon Jewel and Kikyo. Having developed feelings for Kikyo, though, his goal shifted only slightly in that he began to think about using the Jewel to make himself fully human instead. Of course, this desire only allowed Naraku to exploit his and Kikyo's love, leading to his stint nailed to the Tree of Ages, during which his soul once again lusted every moment to be fully demon and to end to his own embarrassing weakness. Then when Kagome appeared six years ago, had he not saved and followed her, believing he would at last get the Jewel? And eventually, he even thought he might have her too… until he started to have doubts about whether she would want him, if he did actually make off with the Jewel against everyone's wishes and transform himself. Even if she ultimately didn't care about him stealing it, there remained the question of which nature he would choose and what she would think of him after that...

And then he had realized that he was no longer willing to do everything and anything to achieve that change, particularly stealing the Jewel. In reality, stealing it last time had only unleashed crushing pain and disappointment into his life. At this point, he knew that the villagers' gift to him would only add unbelievable guilt to the mix no matter what else might happen if he took it. That was why he would not steal the cursed thing again tonight. And that was why he would probably never get his wish to be a full demon… or human after all.

Well, he had finally learned his lesson just in time to live out his long and incomplete existence all alone. He would leave the village right after the ceremony. Despite all the headman's affirmations of the people's appreciation, it would only take the passing of a couple generations at most before the villagers would go back to thinking he was just another parasite lingering around their homes. Similarly, Sango and Miroku would do better without his shadow hanging over them any place they might try to settle down. Besides, he wasn't planning on baring witness to any lovely-dovey newlywed shit—happy, cutthroat (which he was pretty sure it would be mostly between those two), or otherwise. And what did he really care? He had been living his life solo for long enough before he'd even met Kikyo—and it was much simpler that way!

Yet, he just didn't feel that excited about his newfound liberation yet.

Regardless, factoring in his decision to go back to being an independent, ruthless hanyou, he thought he wouldn't make any promises he couldn't keep about his future behavior. He bowed his thanks to Village Head Arai and his family and said the most truthful thing he could think of: "I never expected anything like this, but thank you for the gift. I'll always keep it."

::

After Miroku and Rin set out from the inn, they headed for the closest town where they paid for new mounts from the local stables, as Miroku had insisted that Sango and Kohaku take Kirara with them for extra speed and protection. Kirara had mewed happily at the inn when they came to get her from the stable there, only too happy to leave with Sango and Kohaku, because the stodgy old inn keeper had refused to let her stay inside their room despite the cold.

The four days of riding Miroku and Rin passed on their way to Sesshomaru's castle in the west were mostly silent. At first, Miroku asked a few more questions from time to time about Sesshomaru's condition and Rin inquired politely about what he and Sango had been doing heading toward Mt. Hiei. Oddly, she also asked how Inuyasha and Kagome were. It felt strange to hear her talk about his friends with such warm, if quite reserved curiosity, given that Sesshomaru harbored such distaste for his half-brother. Eventually though, things fell mostly quiet between them as their horses picked their way along the rocks and root-filled trails toward the outskirts of Tottori, where the demonic Ruler of the Western Lands made his home.

Now the imposing castle was in view, and they were crossing the grassy foothills that rolled up to it. Rin showed the way to the stables, and Miroku was surprised to find that Sesshomaru kept a number of horses there, despite the fact that he was never seen riding any of them. Noticing his confused expression, Rin explained that when Lord Sesshomaru was not in residence, humans were allowed change mounts there for a fee that helped with the upkeep of the great manor. Miroku couldn't help but think that the proud youkai must have despised having to collect money from humans, but then again, running a stable was more hands-off than a lot of things, like organizing tenant farmers to till the land to raise money.

Just then, a small rat demon suddenly scurried out of hiding, hugging a huge cluster of hay to feed Miroku's horse. The monk turned to follow Rin, but before they left for the castle, Rin made a quick stop to greet a certain peculiar, two-headed, dragon-hybrid creature. Miroku waited at a small distance, as she whispered a few words into its ears and patted its twin muzzles. Strangely, there was something of a calm, but knowing look about the way that Ah-Un still watched the monk over the girl's shoulder. Although, the beast never spoke and rarely displayed any particularly distinctive character, Miroku still recognized it as a pivotal guardian of sorts in Sesshomaru's odd little band of followers, which of course also included Rin and Jaken...

"_Oh!_" screeched, a shocked, high-pitched voice.

_And speak of the devil_, Miroku thought to himself, as the pointy-capped, green imp scrambled forward.

"Wha-whatis _he _doing here, Rin?" Jaken spluttered, as they crossed over the threshold into the central manor.

However, Miroku stopped listening as the girl made to answer the little demon. Suddenly, Miroku's eyes adjusted to the dimmer light inside the building. Smeared blood remained all across the floor and splattered on the door frames leading into each room they passed through. Night started to fall quickly outside, so Rin lit a candle to lead them through the house. This limited how much Miroku could actually see of the interior, but he could still tell that the damage evidently left behind by Sesshomaru's encounter was extensive.

They reached a room that was well into the interior of the house, where the trail of destruction seemed to be leading them. Miroku first noticed in a small corner of the room directly across from the door, a flickering candle stick whose wax had been allowed to trickle and harden to the floor, so it looked like a glowing lump sitting on the dark, lacquered wood. Beside it was spread a badly wrinkled, old blanket, which the monk realized Jaken had probably been sleeping on for days, as he had kept a morbid watch over his master's failing life.

Miroku turned to face the far end of the room, where he could now tell Sesshomaru must have lie. In fact, from where he stood, he could see nothing of the demon's body at all, but he knew, as Rin went to the bedside, that the Ruler of the West was somewhere there among the billows of cloth atop the futon. Jaken hung back a bit, twisting his hands ever so slightly, as he nervously watched them.

The Buddhist felt strangely unnerved, as he joined Rin and knelt down beside Sesshomaru in the dim light of the candles that had been placed at this side of the futon. Slowly, they leaned in for a better look in the wavering, golden light.

Miroku clenched his jaw suddenly and felt a sharp breath of air hiss through his teeth when Rin drew back some of the blankets. "Jaken says there's been no major changes in his condition, even though he had him moved onto the futon," Rin stated, and then more softly said, "Still, he also hasn't gotten any better either."

This was much worse than anything Miroku could have even begun to imagine. He had never heard of anything like it, he thought, as he willed himself to look over Sesshomaru's broken form. The only thing that Miroku could equate the damage to would be if the youkai's body had undergone harsh aging for a couple hundred years. Shrunken and dehydrated were among the less startling descriptors that came to mind. That, of course, was aside from the wounds and bruising he'd suffered as well. Yet as Rin had said, he did find that if he watched close enough, he could detect the slightest rise and fall of the demon's chest, indicating that he was still alive.

"Rin," Miroku began as he leaned back on his heels, away from the body a bit. "I'm going to be honest with you: I have never seen anything like this before. I hardly know where to begin to do anything for him."

"Please, just try," Rin pressed, her expression solemn, as she looked him in the eye, "Anything."

"Okay, but I'm going to need a few things and some time," he said.

:

Having asked Rin and Jaken to gather a few items and not to enter the room until he said so (to great protestation on Jaken's part), Miroku now knelt by Sesshomaru's beside alone. He spent the first hour unpacking his satchel. He unrolled a variety of scrolls containing sutras; laid out several faded pamphlets containing different pieces of doctrine; and unfolded a guide to the _mudras_, or ritualistic, healing, yogic hand gestures he might need to use.

Then looking at the pile he had made, he decided it would probably be better if he spread them out on the floor to better see all of his resources and avoid missing some important detail. _Yes, that's better_, he thought to himself, as he finished laying out a pamphlet about difficult exorcisms on the last remaining blank piece of floor surrounding him.

But it wasn't really better, though. He had just wasted the last hour shuffling paper around, and he was not at all closer to figuring out what to do.

So for the second and third hours, he flipped through several of the works lying around him looking for any mention of a condition like the one that gripped Sesshomaru. When he finished looking through everything he had, though, nothing seemed to really fit the description. Holding his head in his hands, the monk thought again about all the details he had gathered so far:

Fact 1: The victim was attacked by something, most likely another demon, before falling into his current state.

Fact 2: The victim was found unresponsive but still breathing, indicating that he is still alive.

Fact 3: The victim's body is severely damaged with a withered, aged appearance.

Lastly, Fact 4: No one, other than possibly the attacker, witnessed him fall into his current state.

Miroku sighed. It had to have been the one-hundredth time he had run through the same list that night.

In his prior experience, the number one reason people normally became unresponsive for long periods of time was because their souls had wandered away from their bodies during sleep in order to haunt the dreams of others. However, this was normally the result of great emotional—particularly romantic—distress, such as a long-held unrequited love or the death of a lover. _Ah, no, not like Sesshomaru at all_, Miroku thought. Not to mention, there were no known recorded instances involving a demon as a victim. Furthermore, when he asked them, neither Rin nor Jaken reported having seen Sesshomaru in their dreams, a typical occurrence with wandering souls. So there had to be another answer.

So once again, Miroku decided that fact number three, Sesshomaru's appearance, was the next most promising piece of evidence available. Although Jaken had been particularly resistant to Miroku, the monk had managed to get it out of him that Sesshomaru was easily more than 300 years old. That certainly was impossibly old by human standards if not by demon standards. Was it possible that a bitter enemy had cursed Sesshomaru's body to age in accordance with his real age with the goal of immobilizing him indefinitely but not killing him? That would be would be a very cruel plot indeed. But who with that kind of power would have the motivation to come after Sesshomaru? Furthermore, Rin had been unable to think of anyone besides Inuyasha and Naraku in recent times with whom he had an obvious rivalry. Finally, possession didn't seem likely. He had none of the signs of it, such as acting out bizarrely or exhibiting unpredictable mood shifts. Besides, who would have the power to control a demon like Sesshomaru anyway?

As much as he didn't like the idea of it, given that he had received the proper training and thus should have been able to come up with a better solution beforehand, Miroku decided that he was just going to have start trying out some healing techniques on him. With any luck, he might respond to one of them. So, the monk folded his legs into the lotus position; took a deep, meditative breath; and began to recite the sutras.

::

When Inuyasha stepped out of the bath house and followed Kaede in the direction of the shrine, he felt like he was in a dream even more than before. Just as when he entered the village hours earlier, a small procession of little shrine maidens with clusters of ritualistic silver bells waited to lead him onward. This time there was a young man who looked to be about the same age as Kagome's brother Sota, who joined them shouldering a small, hourglass-shaped, hand drum. As they started in a line toward the shrine—the girls with the bells, the youth with the drum, Inuyasha, and finally Kaede—the instruments produced an austere rhythmic tune: first the bells' chilly "_shing shing_", followed by the drum's whining response "_TEW-tew_".

Aside from this, the village was strangely quite right until they were almost to the shrine. That's when they began to hear the soft din of voices, where all of the villagers now gathered, waiting for the event to begin. A good number of them rarely took any interest in shrine related affairs. However, tonight was different. Some of them had been interested in the gossip surrounding the selection of Inuyasha—who they saw as simultaneously notorious and yet pleasingly committed to protecting their village—to return the Jewel. The sudden absence of Lady Kagome, to whom there was much talk that Inuyasha had become quite attached, only compounded the fascination of the more talkative housewives to see him on display now. Then, there was a good portion of the village which had been drawn to the shrine out of a combination of fear and terrified curiosity about whether the hanyou would simply take the Shikon Jewel again, only this time succeed in using it to become more powerful and slaughter them all. At least if they were already at the shrine when he did so, they would see it coming they decided in resignation.

So to Inuyasha, the last two-hundred some yard walk to the _tori _gate, which marked the entrance to the shrine felt beyond the surreal. A pathway had been left clear in the middle of the crowd for Inuyasha to walk to the central building where he would return the Jewel. As the tune of their little procession reached the top of the crowd, an unnatural hush fell over the villagers, as if they had even ceased to breath. All eyes were suddenly on Inuyasha, as he came into view after the young musicians. Suddenly, the only sound he could hear over the deafening silence was the thrumming of his own heart, pumping a flood of blood past his own eardrums. Cold sweat leaked out onto his palms. Momentarily, he wondered what all those people behind their staring eyes thought of seeing his black hair and greyish-brown eyes, which he so rarely showed to anyone.

Then, he caught sight of the little girl who had groomed his hair earlier: in that split second before she realized that he was observing her observing him, her eyes were wide and curious, not a trace of hate or anger there, only deep fascination, like so many of the other people around her. When she saw him looking, of course, she started a bit. Then she surprised him with a small, shy smile.

_She's smiling at _**me**_,_ Inuyasha heard a voice say in disbelief somewhere inside his mind. He hesitantly felt himself smile back. And for a moment, as he seemed to float past everyone, the silk of his brand new clothes and his freshly washed hair and face shining in dim starlight, he dared to feel proud but not of something he had done or not done. He felt proud… of himself.

Then, a chill ran down his spine because the procession was over. Kaede was speaking to him, telling him to take the Shikon Jewel from a wooden case that she held open before him. He looked down at it: it had been put on a new string decorated with pinkish seashell shards like in the days that Kikyo had protected it. Reverently, he took it and placed the shelled strand over his head. At the same time, in the surrounding quiet, he registered the whisper of bowstrings tightening and the click of swords being readied in their scabbards. Lord Taka's men made their presence known, but Inuyasha only breathed deeply and removed the wooden _geta _sandals Kaede had made him wear. He turned and walked up the steps leading into the shrine building. As he lifted the grass mat covering the door to enter, he closed his eyes, and for the first time in his life, he prayed, _If all the kami destroy me tonight for entering their sacred home after all I have done, then alright, fine. _ With that, he stepped inside.

::

Hours later, at the castle in the west, Miroku emerged from Sesshomaru's room, his face pale and worn looking with stale sweat. He rubbed his brow and eyes with his sleeve, as Rin and Jaken jumped to their feet to hear what he had to say.

"I think I saved him," he said, at last.


	7. Chapter 6

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. **

Since the first time that she laid eyes on him, when she was much smaller and spied him propped against a tree trunk in the woods, recovering from battle wounds, Rin had thought Sesshomaru was the most beautiful being that she had ever laid eyes on. That was no less true now. She thought back to the early hours of that morning when Miroku brought them back into the room to see Sesshomaru.

_Rin gasped when she first saw him._

"_That is not Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken exploded in indignation._

_Rin couldn't resist drawing closer to their lord to check for herself. "It isn't, but it is him," she managed to say after the initial wave of confusion passed. It was evident that the monk had brought him back from death, but—_

"_That is not Lord Sesshomaru's hair! Lord Sesshomaru's hair is white! And what has happened to his youkai markings?" Jaken shouted._

"_You will also find that his fangs, claws, and mokomoko pelts are gone," Miroku volunteered to save Jaken the trouble of enumerating any more obvious differences._

_Finding her voice again, Rin asked the burning question, "How did you revive him?"_

"_An extremely rare, extremely risky ritual. That was only after hours of trial and error that I somehow realized that _**most**_ of his soul was missing," the monk replied, looking terribly weary._

"_Missing?" Rin let the word digest for a moment before daring to ask, "Then… you did get the missing piece back?"_

_Miroku looked uncomfortable, as he made to explain: "No, that's the thing: I didn't. So instead, I realized I had to bind other souls to his body in order to bring him back to life. It's only a temporary measure," he added._

_The wheels were already turning in Rin's head as she began to articulate the conclusion: "So, the souls you used must have been—"_

"—_Human ones," finished Miroku. "Yes, that's why he looks so different—he's more human now than demon. In fact, he's probably mostly human."_

_Rin was barely processing what she was hearing, but still, she felt she had to ask, "When he wakes up, I mean, will he still be…himself?" _

"_To be honest, I don't know what he'll be like. I've never done anything like this before," the monk answered._

_Suddenly, Jaken let up a great wail, "Human?! Lord Sesshomaru is going to be so angry when he wakes up, he is going to kill us for surrrrrrrre!"_

_After Rin finally managed to hush the distraught imp demon, the monk slept for about three hours before leaving not long after dawn. Before leaving though, he showed Rin how to make and administer a fish head and herbal broth he recommended to help Sesshomaru get his strength back. He also explained that Sesshomaru still retained the more serious gouge and scratch wounds he had sustained to his chest. Therefore, Rin was going to have to start changing the dressings covering those areas more regularly now that his body was not so fragile. Furthermore, Sesshomaru would no longer be able to heal himself so rapidly, so Rin would have to watch that he did not get too feverish during his physical recovery, which would be difficult even under otherwise normal circumstances. _

_She indicated her understanding and thanked Miroku profusely on his way out. Just before he was about to depart, as an added thought, she told him to take Ah-Un with him so that he could return to his wife faster. He could use him as long as he liked, she told the monk. All Miroku had to do was tell the beast where he wanted to go, and Ah-Un would take him there. Miroku expressed his gratitude and told her he would try to come back in about a month to see how Sesshomaru was faring, and he told her to send word, if the Ruler of the West grew suddenly worse. Then, the monk departed._

That was how Sesshomaru had now become the most beautiful _man_ she had ever laid eyes on.

Even as she knelt at beside him, she did not feel as much like she was nursing him back from the brink of death. In fact, she couldn't help but get distracted admiring everything about him. It was as if she was looking upon him all anew, like one looks upon the first spring day when the frost melts for the last time after a long, dark winter; while it was the same familiar scene, one had to adjust to seeing it in fresh adornments and colors.

Although his features now looked less unreal than before, his new mortal appearance was hardly common. While his usual starlight-white hair had been changed, the locks were still almost as breathtakingly silky, and the new color was a beautifully unique shade of darkish-grey slate. His skin, now uninterrupted by his typical indigo and purple youkai moon and stripes, was still incredibly pale, but with sanguine warmth compared to his normal, frosty, white complexion. Beneath his lowered eyelids, handsomely fringed with a thicket of much darker lashes, she was dying to know whether the color of his eyes had changed too. She had always loved the molten gaze of his golden ones, but she was convinced that if Sesshomaru had brown eyes, they would be gorgeous as well.

Rin was truly beside herself. She just couldn't believe the change that had taken place over him not only compared to how she had always known him but to how he was even ten hours before, when he looked barely better than mangled death. Aside from the more aesthetic changes in his characteristics, the multiple minor cuts and bruises that had marred his face, neck, and arms had vanished, and his body was no longer twisted, stiff, cold and corpse-like.

Rather, he had become feverish as Miroku had predicted he would as a response to all the heavy-duty healing his body had to accomplish. However, instead of being anxious, as she normally would've been if someone dear to her had a fever, Rin was excited. She imagined her hands melting away like snow with a burn from his now flush, warm skin. Likewise, she wanted to kiss each drop of perspiration she wicked from his brow. Finally, for each time he swallowed or even twitched in his sleep, she felt like bursting into tears of joy, for these were all signs that he was not dying but living.

The only problem was that in a matter of time he was going to wake up, and only then would the enormity of the next challenge in their lives even be revealed.

::

It was just before sunset when Miroku saw his destination slide into view on the earth below. It had been a funny experience riding Ah-Un. The creature had done just as Rin had said and taken him exactly to the place that he had requested. He flew much like Kirara, soaring through the air quite smoothly. The demon seemed pretty uninterested in Miroku for the most part; although at one point, Miroku thought he caught one of the demon's heads looking at him over its scaly shoulder, but when the monk did a double take to see, Ah-Un was again looking straight head.

"There," Miroku said now pointing to a spot where Ah-Un could land. As Ah-Un touched down, Miroku looked directly at the landmark he knew too well: the crater where his father met his demise all those years ago. Miroku slid off of Ah-Un and was standing before the crater, looking from his now wind-tunnel free hand to his feet in the grass below, when he heard the old man's voice.

"Welcome back, my boy, although I certainly hope you did not come all this way to inspect the grass growing over your father's grave," his old master joked.

"Mushin," Miroku said as he turned and looked up with a weak smile at the monk. Of course, Mushin was flanked by a familiar, jovial looking raccoon dog demon, who Miroku greeted next, "And Haji, it's good to see you again."

"Master," Haji said in greeting with a small bow before Mushin spoke again.

"But why are you alone?" the older monk with the ruddy nose asked, looking around. Although it was slight, Miroku detected the slightest falter in the monk's demeanor as the older man noticed Ah-Un before he went on to say, "Where is that lovely girl of yours? I thought that you said that you were bringing her with you."

"Sango fell ill on the way, so she had to stay back in Nagoya. Fortunately, I don't think it's anything serious, but I ended up going on without her," Miroku said a little awkwardly before he went on to his real reason for continuing on to Mt. Hiei on his way back to Nagoya. "Master, there's something I had to see you about," he said very seriously.

Mushin's mustache twitched ever so slightly out of curiosity before he beckoned to the younger man saying, "Well, then come in out of the cold and have a drink of sake and a seat by the fire with me, and I'll hear about what troubles you."

It was after Mushin had poured them each a couple of rounds of warm sake, and Haji had stalked off to go find his dinner that Miroku found his voice to speak: "Master, I've done exactly what you once told me never to do."

Mushin sighed, feeling that this was no average thing bothering Miroku. He had seen it in the younger man's eyes the moment he arrived. Still, he said half-jokingly, "It would hardly be the first time. Which thing is it this time?"

"This time is different, Mushin. I think I have completely failed in my capacity as a servant of Buddha," Miroku replied, having set his sake cup aside and leaned forward toward the fire pit so that his elbows rested on his knees. Guiltily, he looked at his hands as he spoke, "I performed one of the forbidden rituals."

Still looking into his clasped hands, Miroku heard the thud of Mushin's sake cup and the liquid plink of sake sloshing inside it, as the old man deftly set it down on the wooden paneling around the pit; Miroku knew he definitely had his master's attention now, for the old man never set down a half-full cup of alcohol. "Which one?" Mushin said, his voice very serious.

"I was begged to save someone from death. It was the "Soul Binding" sutra. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway," Miroku replied.

There was a moment of silence. Then Mushin stood up, and although the old monk rarely ever got angry about anything, his voice suddenly cracked over Miroku like thunder: "You stupid boy! Do you even know how the forbidden sutras work? What will happen to you if… Who did you do it for?"

"I didn't have much of a choice. It was a friend's brother," Miroku said, wishing he could avoid revealing the full identity, like a child futilely resisting a parent's questions.

Mushin was going to drag it out of him: "Which friend?"

"Inuyasha, his half-brother," Miroku replied.

"Inuyasha's half-brother? Inuyasha's a half-demon… Then it was Inuyasha's _human_ half-brother?" Mushin half-pried, half-hoped.

Miroku sighed, "No, Inuyasha only has one brother: Sesshomaru-"

"_The Ruler of the Western Lands_," Mushin finished. He then reached down and smacked Miroku over the back of the head. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with emotion, as he berated his protégé: "You stupid, stupid boy! I train you, and this is what you waste your abilities on? Not only do you use one of the forbidden sutras, but you use the power given to you by the Buddha to revive a _demon_? Do you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into? Where's the mark?"

"On the bottom of my right foot, in the same exact place as him," Miroku answered.

"Let me see it," Mushin answered gruffly, sitting down again.

Miroku removed his sandal and lifted his foot so that Mushin could see: there on the ball of his foot was a small, black, eight-spoked wheel that was noticeably incomplete on one side, the wheel part a broken circle. Miroku still clearly remembered the searing pain that had burned through his foot the moment he finished binding the last soul to Sesshomaru's body. The shock of it had been so terrible that he had been forced down on one knee. As soon as he had recovered enough and seen the mark on his own foot, it had only taken him a moment to discover that Sesshomaru had received it too.

Mushin looked Miroku dead on. "Of course this mark means that your fates are now bound to one another, unless the ritual is reversed, and you can release the souls bound to him. I hope you have a good plan to do that, because you realize what will happen if either of you dies before you can do so?" Mushin asked, his eyes filled with concern and disappointment for the younger man. Miroku hated himself for hurting his master by what he had done, but he felt like he had to tell someone what he just went through to save Sesshomaru.

"Upon death, we will both suffer immeasurable torments in the Underworld for the rest of eternity. Yes, I know," Miroku replied. "I'll think of something."

"Oh Buddha in Nirvana, I hope you can," Mushin said wearily before throwing back his drink of sake.

**::::**

**Notes: So this is a pretty short update this time, but I wanted to give you all these two parts before we go back to check on what's up with Inuyasha and the Jewel. Not to mention, I had a great time writing the Rin Sesshy bit, so hope you enjoyed reading it, too! Peace, for now!**


	8. Chapter 7

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. **

We now return, back in time, to the night before Rin sat admiring her dear Lord Sesshomaru and Miroku made his confession to his master, the monk Mushin. Before those events took place, we remember that Miroku had sat surrounded by all his instructive spiritual texts, trying to figure out just how he was going to save Lord Sesshomaru. That said, the monk was completely unaware of what was about to happen approximately 450 miles away, due East. That was the approximate distance from Sesshomaru's home in the West to Kaede's village where Inuyasha had just stepped inside the village shrine, bearing the notorious Shikon Jewel. We resume our story there…

:::

Inuyasha stepped into the silvery light. It washed over him like wave. Even before the grass mat over the door had fallen back into the place, the shine had absorbed him, like the sea soaks in sunlight. He even felt like he might be walking on the ocean floor, his body strangely heavy but at the same time weightless. The temperature reached that pleasant point at which it matched his body heat. He felt inexplicably like this bright world was embracing him, almost lovingly.

Then, he saw her: pure white over alarming red, fine ebony hair flowing, and skin like pale birch bark in winter. Kikyo.

"Hello, Inuyasha," she spoke to him when they were standing no more than an arm's length apart.

"Kikyo," he breathed, as if he actually were asleep, and in the middle of a surreal fantasy. Compulsively, he felt himself ask, "How have you been?" _Of course, she's not good, stupid! She's dead, _he berated himself internally.

Surprisingly, Kikyo only giggled shyly, hiding behind one of her hands like a school girl_._ "Oh, Inuyasha, you're blushing," she said at seeing him go red in the face. "I am well," she answered, composing herself. "Inuyasha, do you know where you are?" she asked.

"Um, I think inside the shrine," he answered.

"Yes, but you've also entered the Spirit World, where I live now," she replied. "The Jewel has brought you here."

"Oh, Inuyasha said, looking down at the Jewel where it rested against his chest. It was glowing, somehow brighter than usual.

"And you know why it has brought you here?" Kikyo questioned him again.

Inuyasha felt weirdly like a child again, unsure how to answer her properly. He felt uncontrollably shy for words, so he just shook his head ever so slightly.

"Because it wants you to make The Choice," she stated, emphasizing the last two words.

"But," Inuyasha began, and the rest of the words just came tumbling out of his mouth: "I decided I wasn't going to take it anymore." It wasn't what he had expected himself to say at all. Part of him still did want the Jewel, so he hadn't believed it would be so easy for him to say aloud that he didn't plan to claim it.

Kikyo's eyebrows rose a bit at hearing this: "Is that so?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess it is," he responded, gathering some of his resolve, so that the last part of his statement sounded a bit bolder, like his normal self.

The miko now gave a small smile of satisfaction. "It is true that you have changed," she stated. "You are truly worthy of the Shikon-no-Tama's full power now. That is why its first guardian, Priestess Midoriko, who lives still within the Jewel, has allowed it to present itself to you tonight."

"Priestess Midoriko?" Inuyasha questioned.

"She continues to live within the Shikon Jewel, waging an unending battle with a pack of evil demons, who once wished to steal the Jewel. She kept them locked in battle all this time in an effort to maintain the tenuous balance that exists between demons and humans. She has been praying for someone to make a pure wish that would allow her to end the battle, a wish that promises to positively progress the relationship between the two types of beings, human and demon. You are the one who can make that wish, Inuyasha," Kikyo explained.

"Me? But Kagome—" Inuyasha began, but Kikyo ignored him and took his protestation in a different direction.

"You would want to be with her, if you believed that you were worthy of her, right?" Kikyo said.

"Yes," the young man replied, "but I'm not sure if I am."

"That's why, before you use the Shikon Jewel to make your wish, I came here to grant you one other wish, a wish I know that you have held deep within your heart for many years, Inuyasha," the late miko said. "There is someone here to meet you."

Inuyasha looked in the direction she toward which she gestured, and there he saw the approaching form of a woman as the light melted away.

"Mother?" Inuyasha breathed. Recognizing her outline, he rushed toward her.

"Inuyasha, my son," she smiled softly up at him, her hands out before her to take his.

Inuyasha had been tricked before by his enemies into thinking that his mother was there with him, but this time he knew it was really her. There was love in her warm eyes, and as they met each other at last, a tear tumbled down her cheek, as they entered each other's embrace. "My beautiful boy!" she cried happily.

"I'm here, Mom! It's me," Inuyasha said, stroking his mother's long black hair and comforting her.

They embraced for another minute, before Izayoi leaned back, and taking her son's hands in hers, looked at him. "Inuyasha, you have grown so strong and handsome. I am so proud of you!" she said, and touched his cheek to admire his features more closely. "It must be the night of the full moon," she said observing his black hair and brown eyes.

"Yes, Mother," he said loving her reassuring touch. "Are you disappointed to see me like this?"

"No, of course not: I would be happy to see you any way you were!" Izayoi replied, looking right into his gaze. "You have always been the best of _both_ of us, my dear. How often did I try to help you see that?"

"Always, Mom, you always did," Inuyasha replied, prickly tears welling in his eyes again. "I wanted so much to believe you, but sometimes it was so hard."

Just then, a man's voice rumbled up from somewhere behind Inuyasha: "You have someone who loves all sides of you now, though, don't you?"

Both Izayoi and Inuyasha looked around at the silhouetted form emerging out of the misty shine. Izayoi smiled softly at hearing the voice, and there was a renewed glimmer in her eyes that hadn't been there a minute before. She reached up a silken-sleeve covered hand to her boy's face.

"There, there, dear. Dry your tears: you don't want to cry in front of your father, do you?" she asked warmly. Inuyasha shook his head, and hurriedly blotted away the remaining drops with his own sleeve before the man who had always been the biggest mystery in his life spoke again.

"Izayoi, don't fuss over the boy so much. He's fine," Inu no Taisho said, as his features finally came into Inuyasha's full view.

"Father," Inuyasha said, bowing reverently before the apparition of the daiyoukai.

"Son," Inu no Taisho said before taking two giant strides forward and embracing his child. When he was young, Inuyasha remembered imagining what it might feel like to be held by his father. So now, as his father held him, even only briefly, Inuyasha felt small in his arms.

"Father," Inuyasha breathed into the man's shoulder. Hot tears stung his eyes, but when Inu no Taisho released him, he quickly rubbed them away again. He didn't want to cry the entire time he was with his parents, especially since he knew it was probably the last time he would be able to see them for a very, very long time.

"You've grown big and tall and strong, I see. Good," Inu no Taisho declared, looking his younger son up and down with apparent fatherly approval.

"But, I'm usually stronger than this," Inuyasha said, looking directly at his father before going on to explain. "I'm a proper half-demon, but because tonight's—"

"The Moonless Night?" his father finished. "Yes, I know. I understand, Inuyasha."

Inuyasha was somehow taken aback at Inu no Taisho's comprehension of his situation. The hanyou had always figured that, wherever his father's spirit had wandered off to, he probably thought rarely of his mutt offspring, if at all. And he seriously doubted that the daiyoukai was very concerned over the quality of that offspring's life, for what was a hanyou typically but a mixed blood mistake of an ill-fated human-demon match?

As if he was reading the young man's thoughts, Inu no Taisho stunned him once more with what he said next: "Inuyasha, I know your life must not have always been easy growing up between two worlds. For that, I'm truly sorry. But I have never been sorry that I brought you into it. You are my son. I died believing that you would be tough enough to handle the challenges. You were fated to live as you have, and you have done well."

"Th-thank you, Father," Inuyasha uttered, astounded by his father's praise. "I've done my best." Izayoi, who was still standing beside Inuyasha, squeezed his arm approvingly before moving to Inu no Taisho's side and placing a hand on one of his large, crossed forearms. "Inuyasha, you haven't yet answered your father's question," she reminded him.

"What?" Inuyasha blurted out, trying to remember if he had missed any part of what Inu no Taisho had said so far.

"Have you met someone who loves all of you?" his father asked again.

Inuyasha, slightly surprised that his father would be asking this, thought for a second. Kagome was kind and did seem to care about him no matter what form he was in, even going so far as to kiss him to calm him down once when he was raging in his demon form. Just because he couldn't figure out what form she preferred him in, didn't mean that she hadn't at least reconciled herself to his many sides.

But when did he ever let her know how much that had meant to him? How much he cherished her consideration for him? How his skin tingled every time she touched or held him and how many hours afterward he would remember how the sensation felt and relive the moment in his mind? Or how sorry he was that fear of rejection kept him from ever telling her any of these things and instead made him act rude and callous? In truth, he had realized that's why she left and why he hadn't yet been able to go get her back.

"Well, I think I might have, if I can win her back," Inuyasha answered. "But is that enough?" This was the question that Inuyasha had long pondered as he came to realize that ultimately his happiness might actually be subject to compromise of his goals and desires.

"No," Inu no Taisho replied bluntly before adding, "it's important, but you must also love yourself."

"Yes, Inuyasha, do not be afraid to love yourself," his mother said, taking Inu no Taisho's hand, who stole an admiring glance at her. Then both father and mother looked at their son. "It can work, if you try hard," Izayoi said. Then Inuyasha understood what they were trying to show him. With them holding hands, he finally saw his parents as the two halves of himself and how they fit together. How they could be happy together. How they had loved each other.

Izayoi lightly squeezed her beloved's hand before letting go to come closer to Inuyasha. "I'm afraid it's time for me to go, dear one. But we will meet again one day," she said, pulling him forward to place a small kiss on his forehead.

"Thank you, Mother," he said, trying to smile through the emotion. He hugged her once more, and when he was leaning in close to her ear, he whispered, "I've missed you."

"And I, you," she responded, touching her hand to his cheek one last time. Then, she turned to walk away. Inuyasha watched until she was just about to fade into the brightness, when his father reclaimed his attention.

"Son, let's walk," he indicated a stone path that had suddenly appeared, winding through a Zen-style rock garden, all in shades of restful grey.

"So I understand that you have retrieved the Tessaiga and learned many of the techniques to wield it effectively? Such as the Windscar and Backlash Wave effects?" Inu no Taisho prompted.

"Yes, Father, the fang is far more powerful than I ever imagined when I first came to possess it. Thank you, it is an excellent gift," Inuyasha said bowing his head in Inu no Taisho's direction.

"You are welcome, but it would be nothing if you did not take the effort to hone your abilities and sense the needs of Tessaiga. You have shown much self-control and determination. And that was without anyone to show you what to do, at least aside from that cowardly parasite, Myoga," Inu no Taisho declared, at which both father and son keh'd simultaneously. "I am very proud of your progress."

"Thank you, Father," Inuyasha replied, dipping his head slightly again before going on. "But you praise me too much. I had a need to learn how to use Tessaiga, and I did it."

"And what was that 'need', as you so put it?" Inu no Taisho asked.

"My friends and I were gathering the pieces of the Jewel after it shattered," Inuyasha explained, gesturing at the crystalline sphere hanging from his neck, "and I had to learn how to use the sword to protect us from all the greedy bastards who attacked us, because they wanted it for themselves."

"So you were motivated by the need to protect yourself and others," Inu no Taisho reiterated the words of his son approvingly. However, he sighed heavily. "Which brings me to the thing I want to discuss with you, Inuyasha: I am concerned about your brother."

"What?" Inuyasha exclaimed, jaw-dropped.

"I started worrying about him, right around the time you were born, actually," Inu no Taisho admitted, stopping with his hands clasped behind his back. He was looking out at a very peaceful, austere arrangement of several rocks. Light colored gravel had been raked into connecting ripples emanating from the larger pieces of stone.

"But Sesshomaru's always gotten everything he ever needed or wanted… well just about," Inuyasha said the last bit with a quieter, darker tone. He couldn't forget how his elder half-brother almost literally salivated over Tessaiga anytime he saw it.

"Except what he wanted most of all from me," Inu no Taisho stated, his thoughts in the same vein as Inuyasha's. "But I didn't feel he'd earned, not to mention, needed it as much as you would. And I still feel that way. Yet, I need to ask you to come to your brother's assistance."

Inuyasha couldn't resist huffing and crossing his arms. _I wait all these years to find out what the guy who fathered me is like, and all he wants to do is talk about that arrogant jerk's problems! Give me a break!_ "Listen, all due respect and everything, sir, but considering my, uh, _relationship_ with him over the years, I don't feel like I owe my half-brother much of anything," Inuyasha retorted, as politely as he thought he could.

"I can imagine that Sesshomaru has been anything but helpful to you, considering his inclination toward competitiveness and self-centeredness and the relative ease with which his strengths and abilities have come to him; however, that I'm afraid is the only thing your brother understands: power. And it's soon going to be the death of him, if he doesn't accept the help of those around him," Inu no Taisho pointedly stated.

Inuyasha let his father's words sink in for a moment in an effort to show him some patience before he spoke again: "So, you're asking me to go offer Sesshomaru my help when, as good as I've gotten, we all know that he's still innately more powerful than me? I think he might not buy it…"

The late daiyoukai pinched the bridge of his nose in mild frustration at the intense rivalry that had flourished between his sons: "I might agree, except that there's whispering in the Spirit World that Sesshomaru's life is threated as we speak. Although it is not apparently his time to go at the moment, this test on him is going to unalterably change his life or cut it short."

When his younger son still looked unimpressed, Inu no Taisho faced him head on and took another tact: "I realize that this must seem like a pretty steep request coming from past the grave and on the first time we've ever met—but that is just what this is: a request, the plea of a parent on behalf of his child. Inuyasha, you and Sesshomaru are both equally my sons, and I would protect your lives with all of my being. Did your mother ever tell you how I saved both you and her the night you were born, when someone attempted to burn you alive in the very house your mother gave birth in?"

"Yes," Inuyasha replied quietly, sobering again. "It was the night you gave your life protecting us."

"That's is why I am asking you to help your brother, because I owe it to him as well, but I cannot be there to do it myself," Inu no Taisho said firmly.

Inuyasha sighed heavily: "Okay, okay. Fine. If I find out anything about him being in trouble or needing help, I promise to help him. Alright?"

"Yes, that is fine. Thank you, Inuyasha," Inu no Taisho accepted his son's begrudging concession. Inuyasha cocked one eyebrow slightly as he looked his father over and thought, _What's that weird expression on his face?_

Indeed, a light but strangely playful smile crossed Inu no Taisho's lips. Without warning, he suddenly reached across and punched his son in the arm, laughing.

"Hey!" Inuyasha exclaimed in surprise.

"Ha ha, it's just you're the perfect combination of your mother and I! You undoubtedly have your mother's good natured compassion yet all my stubbornness and bluntness!" he chuckled. "If only I had been around a bit longer, I think I would have worked a bit more on you and your brother's sense of humor. You both take yourselves way too seriously!"

Inuyasha flushed and cast his father an odd, confused look. For the first time, Inuyasha wondered if he now understood what Kagome meant when she asked sarcastically if her family lived to embarrass her.

Inu no Taisho calmed himself after enjoying his own joke but continued smiling at his boy. "Inuyasha, I'm very glad we could meet," he said more seriously.

Forgetting his annoyance, the young man found his own smile and replied, "Me too, Father," and the two men exchanged respectful bows.

"I'll follow your mother now," Inu no Taisho said. The Zen garden had vanished unnoticed, and so he turned to walk away again into endless white light.

Inuyasha felt his heart rush, as he tried to think of anything else he might want to say to his father before he disappeared. "Father!" he shouted out.

Inu no Taisho stopped and looked back at his child. Inuyasha sucked in a deep breath and called out, "Thank you, Father, for everything. I'll do my best to take care of those around me as well as you took care of us – even Sesshomaru."

"Good, my son," Inu no Taisho said, and Inuyasha watched intently, as with one last step, his father dissolved into the light.

"Was meeting them as good as you thought it would be?" came a voice.

Inuyasha watched the spot where his father had disappeared for another moment and then slowly turned to face the miko who had reappeared. "Yeah. Yeah, I think it was. It was… different than I thought it would be, I guess, but good. Thank you for that. I'll never forget it."

"Good," Kikyo said. "Then, you are now ready to decide."

"Really, now?" Inuyasha said, his heart pounding again. "But I, I mean, don't I get a little more time to think about it?"

"The Jewel already knows what's in your heart," Kikyo replied evenly. "There's nothing to think about. All you have to do is look into the Jewel and empty your mind and wait. Are you ready?" she said stepping away from him.

Inuyasha felt his hand clasp the Jewel. He looked down at it, glimmering in his palm. He glanced up and saw Kikyo turning to go, apparently thinking he was about to leave.

"Wait!" he shouted and suddenly grabbed her wrist, as she was in mid-turn. Startled, she looked up at him.

He looked directly into her eyes: "Last thing: why not us? Why didn't the Jewel choose you or me, back then?"

Kikyo looked back at him, her gaze lingering over his features, and she appeared to be thinking before she blinked very slowly and looked at him. "I couldn't reconcile myself to all of you. My trust in the darker side of you wasn't complete."

He swallowed the lump in his throat. "I know," he admitted, his throat rough and muffled. "I'm so sorry about all the pain we caused each other."

She looked down, dark lashes shielding her eyes from view. "Me too," she whispered.

"Are we okay, now, though?" he asked.

She looked up at him and managed a sad smile. "Yes, can we be?"

He mirrored her expression, and he replied, "Yes. I'm glad we got this chance. Thank you for coming here."

She bit her lower lip ever so slightly and nodded before he released her wrist. Her hands clasped in front of her, she took a few steps back, as she was in the process of doing before he stopped her. "It's time, Inuyasha," she told him.

"Right," he said, and looked down at the Jewel, the light of which was starting to pulsate more vigorously in his hand. He thought about how he was going to have to clear his mind over his nerves, but just before he began, he looked up to steal one final glance at the woman he had once loved. Kikyo was already gone, though, soaked into that white world beyond his vision.

A breeze picked up out of nowhere, and he returned his attention to the Jewel. Looking directly into its core, he felt his racing heart thump into time with the quickening throb of the stone's glistening light. He steadied his breath and shut his eyes as it became too hard to see through the blazing rays now emanating from the stone. However, before he let go of all conscious thought to the Jewel's control, he made one last silent request: _Please, whatever becomes of me in a moment, let me be able to be with Kagome. I only want us to be happy together._

And a sudden rush of energy crashed over him. He felt the wind that was swirling around him manifest and abruptly push through his form. What Inuyasha experienced then couldn't be described as pain, but rather a deep sensation, like something was pressing on his very soul. He was distantly aware of what was happening yet vaguely absent. He dared to open his eyes for a moment, and all he saw was the Jewel floating up inches from his face, bursting with power; however, the intense light and the rush of the wind quickly made him feel sick, and he had to clamp his eyes shut once more. His limbs tingled and grew ghostly limp as if the young man had slept wrong on all four appendages at once.

Then, he noticed it: as yielding and natural as the soft rind peels back from a piece of ripe fruit, he felt his soul splitting, separating into two.

:

"Old woman, I think it hardly needs to be said, but Lord Taka has been notified of this situation, and he has sent word back: he is extremely upset," Commander Ueda spat bitterly. "The half demon Inuyasha has been secluded in the shrine for close to four hours now! And still you expect my men and this whole village to sit and wait?"

"Commander Ueda, yes. I'm not about to interfere in what goes on between this world and the Spirit World, "Kaede answered patiently for the fifth time already that hour."

"For all we know that blasted beast of man is going to burst forth and slaughter each and every one us like sitting ducks!" Commander Ueda exclaimed as if he had not heard Kaede at all.

"Surely that will not happen, though, because ye and yer men have trained to prevent it," Kaede replied dryly. One of Commander Ueda's eyebrows twitched dangerously, as he tried to decide whether to even grace with his attention what he suspected to be sarcasm on the old shrew's part.

Instead, he bit his tongue and acerbically returned, "Well they had better, or all these people's blood will be on you and I, figuratively and literally."

Kaede tried hard not to roll her eyes at the officer's flair for the dramatic. _Inuyasha, ye better finish yer business in there soon, before I'm moved to throttle Commander Ueda myself,_ she thought, staring at the shrine entrance.

Immediately after Inuyasha entered the shrine a blazing white light exploded from inside the small, wooden building and continued to gleam forth past the window and door coverings. Kaede had swiftly yelled for everyone to stand back from the structure, and she stationed her young assistants around it. She had somewhat suspected that something like this might happen when the Jewel was returned to the shrine. Of course, she didn't know specifically what that would be, given that the Jewel hadn't been properly installed in the shrine in probably almost 200 years. So now, she properly considered it shrine business, meaning not in the temporal domain of the local warlord, that Inuyasha had opened an obvious portal to the Spirit World. She planned to do her best to show that the shrine keepers had a firm grip on the situation. After prodding him into returning the Shikon no Tama to the shrine, she felt she owed that much aid to Inuyasha.

So they waited a while longer as the stars slid across the moonless night sky. Many of the villagers dispersed when the blast of spirit light portended the unpredictability of the ritual. Still about two dozen others remained, feeling that they were thus far engaged in the proceedings. They gathered in the village square, some distance away from the shrine building. Village Head Arai and his daughter-in-law and grandson were among them. Other women, old and young, cradled sleeping children in their laps and quietly shared gossip. Some men and older boys played at dice games. Others just sat, staring into the darkness or resting their eyes. The soldiers naturally also grew weary. Kaede noticed as some stole yawns and blinked heavily when they thought no one was looking. It was nearing what we in the modern age would call "midnight."

Even Commander Ueda was getting tired. He repositioned his stance to steady himself where he stood roughly 100 yards from the building. He looked at the little hut past his half-mast eyelids: it looked so peaceful at the moment, almost heavenly, surrounded by the radiance of the mysterious spirit light.

Commander Ueda blinked a long, heavy blink, his mind and body exhausted from anxious waiting. Then, without notice, an explosive sound, as if the very fibers of reality were tearing apart, shattered his hearing. He heard himself scream first over the dry, thundering crack of ancient timber splintering all over him. His ears rang painfully before slowly the sound of other people shouting trickled back into his hearing. That's when he heard it: the roar of the dog demon, Inuyasha.

Kaede had been standing on the frontline close to the shrine and found herself covered with shards of wood and dust as well. A pair of shrine helpers, a young boy and an older woman, held her elbows as the three of them steadied themselves. Looking ahead they instantly saw that the shrine building had been completely shattered. Standing in the middle of the wreckage were four, great, tree trunk-like, fur-covered legs and clawed paws.

The old shrine maiden tilted back her head to take in the sight of the majestic dog demon. His pelt was snowy white, soft, and short compared to that of the legendary Inu no Taisho in the images she had seen of him. Inuyasha's new body was very different too. It resembled more that of an Akita dog, the legs and torso muscular but more stout and compact. Even so, he stood as big as two or three village huts put together. His snout was longer and more pointed than his father's, and his tail was instead a feisty curl. Meanwhile, two jagged purple streaks painted his cheeks, one on each side, adding to the overall ferocity of his appearance. Finally, atop his head were two very familiar, alert, pointy white ears.

Just as the old miko finished taking in his new look, the demon turned his massive head her way.

"Oi, Inuyasha!" she called.

Golden, almond-shaped eyes flashed recognition as he spotted her. She smiled warmly up at him, hoping that Commander Ueda would not be right and that Inuyasha would not just lower his boulder-sized head and eat her.

Indeed, he did not. Instead she watched as he bounced back on his hind legs, whining excitedly before raising his snout in the air and releasing a deafeningly, happy bark.

Her fears retreated at seeing his response. She chuckled to herself a little, and said, "Yes, ye've finally got yer wish." She briefly marveled to herself at how as a young child, mourning for her beloved older sister, she never would have guessed that she'd eventually help the half-demon partially responsible for Kikyo's death. After all the years though, she and Inuyasha had developed a unique relationship. So today, she couldn't help but feel glad for him.

Yet, to her right, someone else was very, very displeased at this turn of events. Commander Ueda's shell-shocked terror was just melting away, as he slowly unclamped his palms from his ears. "Wh-what are you doing?!" he yelled to his men, who were still frozen with fear around him. "Get your spears and arrows! Get the demon!"

Whereas the young recruits cast their commander strange looks, Inuyasha wasted no time in snapping into a snarling crouch, his lips curled back and revealing glistening fangs. The color ran out of one young archer's face, before he unconsciously dropped to the ground. At seeing this, a collective cry went up from the small cluster of villagers who still remained in the square, and they began to scramble in the opposite direction from the now agitated beast.

Satisfied that he had incapacitated Ueda and his obviously inexperienced team, Inuyasha inclined his head in acknowledgment to Kaede. He then turned and leapt powerfully into the forest, Kaede knew, in the direction of the Bone Eater's Well. _Go get 'er_, _Inuyasha_, she thought.

:

Kagome sighed as they finished yet another round of 500 Rummy. She, Ayumi, Eri, and Yuka had been idly chatting and playing cards off and on for the past three hours. While she was enjoying spending time with her old friends, she just couldn't shake that weird lonely feeling she'd been having ever since she left the feudal era.

She gazed out the window as Eri prattled on about some guy in one of her classes she was interested in. The sky and yard were very dark. _Ah, the Moonless Night: a black-haired Inuyasha is probably sitting out there somewhere in the past, fuming, _she casually thought to herself.

To her surprise the star-pricked, velvety blackness beyond her bedroom window was disrupted by a flash of silvery white light. There was a sound of wood loudly being smashed, followed by the smack of a door thrown open. Kagome leapt from her seat on the floor and threw open her window to see out as a gust of wind pushed through the branches of the Tree of Ages and into her room.

"Kagome!" Eri said in annoyance, as few of the cards blew out her grasp and a stack of papers on Kagome's desk lifted into the air.

"Wait," Kagome said, straining to hear over the rush of wind. She thought she heard someone call her name below. She had.

"KAGOME!" bellowed that brash familiar voice, as she heard the sliding glass door on the patio rattle loudly on its tracks, someone slamming it open. She listened as a glass shattered and her mother squeaked in shock, while her grandfather shouted something over Sota saying, "Oh hey, Inuy—"

In moment all sound from the floor below was lost, drowned out by footsteps pounding up the stairs like a herd of stampeding animals. "KAGOME!" the voice shouted again, and she turned to the door just in time to see it burst open, her friends aghast.

"Kagome," he said, once more, breathless before her. Caught in the draft from the window, layers of rich red and black silk floated, around the once-more black-haired, handsome man in her bedroom doorway.

"Kagome, who is this?" Eri blurted out.

"Inuyasha," she breathed in response to everyone as the world ground to a halt. "How did you… I sealed the well with a charm."

"I broke through it," he answered automatically, taking three giant steps into the room around her friends. He took her hands in his with absolutely no resistance from her. "No offense, but it wasn't very strong."

"Oh," she said, staring into his brown eyes, which were more beautiful than she ever remembered. He looked right back her, like she was the only person in the entire world. She had never seen him gaze at her like this before.

"Kagome, I have to be with you," he spoke the words earnestly, so there couldn't be a doubt in her mind. "I've been so stupid. I was so afraid to be with you—so afraid that you couldn't accept me. Worse yet, I worried that, even if you accepted me, that I couldn't accept myself the way I am—the way I was. But I realize now, that all the things that I feared—like hurting the people close to me, alienating people who would want to be close to you, not being strong enough to protect you, even being alone for the rest of my life—those things haven't happened, and they don't have to happen," he explained excitedly, only stopping to catch his breath.

She looked up at him, her eyes like saucers, and he wondered what she was thinking, but he had to finish what he was saying. Eri, Ayumi, and Yuka watched in silent wonder as he adoringly took Kagome's face in his hands and said, "Kagome, I've grown so much being with you, and through that I've grown to love you. You've never given up on me, no matter all the changes I've gone through, and I realize I just can't give up on us. I want the life we've built together back. Can you still be with me?"

Kagome's face flushed, and her eyes welled up with tears, "You idiot, I was just starting to think that you were never coming for me! Of course, I can still be with you!" she cried, clutching and shaking him by the front of his kimono.

"Good, 'cause I'm never letting you get away again," he said huskily, and lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her passionately.

"What in the world is happening right now?" Yuka asked, looking thunderstruck along with Eri.

"True love," answered Ayumi, sincerely happy for her friend.

:::

**Note: I decided to pull in a little bit from the "Final Act" for this chapter, but I thought I'd take it in a new direction. Hope you liked it. **


	9. Chapter 8

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. **

**Note 1: Thank you so, so much to all of you who have recently followed and reviewed my story with such great compliments. It makes me feel really awesome, and it helps to know that you readers are out there as I'm working on the story~ **** I'll do my best to keep things exciting for you!**

**Note 2: I mention a place called Kunashiri Island in this chapter. It's interesting to know that Kunashiri Island is just east of the northernmost point of Hokkaido. It's a part of the disputed Sakhalin Islands, so Russia administers over it, while Japan claims it. It is very close to Japan, so Japanese is one of the languages spoken on the island, but less than 8,000 people live there. Its main industry is fishing. For purposes of the story, we will assume that there's not much going on there and not much reason for anyone to visit. It's definitely likely that it will come up again in future chapters.**

**:::**

"Enjoy your purchase," Kagome said. She passed a shopping bag of books over the counter to an older woman with glasses, who nodded and headed for the exit into the mall where the store, Book Corner, was located. Kagome had been working at the little book store for just over two weeks. Yuka, who had previously worked there before she was promoted and transferred to the larger downtown branch to become the display coordinator, had helped Kagome secure a part-time spot at the local Book Corner as Christmastime help. Kagome liked the job well so far and was grateful for her friend's thoughtfulness.

At the moment, she was looking at a print out of an updated price list, when she heard two girls approaching the cash register. They began tittering to each other softly, "Woah, check him out!"

Curious to know who they were discussing, Kagome looked up at the girls to see the direction of their attention and followed their gaze to the front of the store where an attractive young man had just sauntered in. Kagome thought he was looking pretty hot herself. Lately, she wondered all the time how she had ever gotten so lucky.

"Oh, hey, Inuyasha," Kagome called, feeling very smug in front of the girls, who blushed furiously as they watched the exchange.

"I've got your lunch. Are you ready to take your break now?" he asked, setting the quaint little bento box on the counter top.

"Yup! Let me just ring these customers out," Kagome chirped before asking the embarrassed girls oh-so-nonchalantly, "Is this all for today?"

After Kagome checked out for her lunch break, she and Inuyasha headed for their usual spot in the middle of the mall where a bunch of tables and chairs were set up around a café kiosk. They liked it because the area was normally warm and sunny due to the giant skylight above. They picked a seat next to a small, leafy potted tree at the edge of the area, and Kagome sat down to unwrap her lunch. She really looked forward to the days when she worked afternoons, because Inuyasha had so far insisted on bringing her lunch every time.

"Inuyasha, I really appreciate that you do this, and I love seeing you during my break, but you know you don't have to," Kagome said, looking up at him before she took a bite of fried rice. She felt a little wary about drawing attention to his kindness, since she still didn't fully grasp the change that had taken place over him since he'd returned to her three weeks prior. He was still the coarse, resistant Inuyasha she had always known but with a softer side that she was just beginning to know. He was certainly making an effort to expand his capacity for almost all things involving the nurturing of their relationship.

After he'd burst into her room that night he come to get her back, she'd managed to clumsily introduce him to her friends, badly attempting to brush over where he had suddenly appeared from. Of course, it took Eri only moments to remember seeing him amid the mayhem at their school play years ago. "But hadn't he looked very different that day, even the little that we'd seen of him?"her friends had asked, pressing for an explanation. And their questions only multiplied from there: "_Where_ did he come from just now Kagome? And is that a sword? What about his expensive-looking clothes and old-style hairstyle?" So the moment of truth arrived that night: at long last Kagome and Inuyasha told Eri, Ayumi, and Yuka just where Kagome had been all those times she claimed to be sick during high school. And again, that she hadn't really moved to faraway Kunashiri Island _(see author's note at top)_ for the last two years to, as her mother and grandfather told everyone, help distant family. (Why her family seemed to think that was a reasonable cover, Kagome couldn't imagine.) Indeed, the girls seemed to agree that the Kunashiri Island story was even less plausible than the truth that Kagome was living on the other side of a time-traveling well.

Around 2 a.m., Eri, Ayumi, and Yuka finally left for their homes, obviously of mixed feelings about the extensiveness of the lies they had been told and the extravagance of the truth they were asked to believe. Kagome worried that she would never see them again. As it turned out though, all three girls returned the next day, with Ayumi in the lead, to pledge their loyalty to their friendship and their secrecy, of course on the condition that they find out everything about the other half of Kagome's mysterious life. Again, as Kagome had thought repeatedly since that first night, she wondered how she had ever gotten so lucky.

After the girls had departed in the early hours of the morning after Inuyasha's return, the couple had stayed all through the rest of the night sitting close together on cushions in the middle of her bedroom floor. Inuyasha opened up to her as he never had before. He told her every detail of how he felt after she left: Kaede's request and the kimono the villagers gave him; his meetings with Kikyo, his mother, and his father, and everything his father said to him; and finally how he had wished upon the Shikon Jewel for whatever would let Kagome and him be happy together.

At first light, they returned through the well to discover that his belief was right, that perhaps at last he had gotten the best of both worlds: in the feudal era, he had been made a full demon; while in the modern era, he had been made a full human. She watched him transform into the towering, magnificent white dog demon. Kagome was a bit nervous at first at his immense size, but Inuyasha indicated for her to climb onto his back. She clutched his fur and flattened herself against his back, as he cantered into the woods. They saw new parts of the woods and rushed across a plain that she'd never been to before. Her fears quickly wore off. Instead, her heart soared at feeling the warmth of his body, the incredible power of his muscles, and the wind in her hair, while golden morning light broke over them.

At last, they reentered the forest, and he transformed back into his new humanesque appearance. Wanting to avoid the village where Lord Taka's men were probably waiting to hassle him, Inuyasha picked her up like she weighed no more than a feather, and they perched in a gigantic moss covered tree. There they spent the morning, talking about what their life together could be like, acknowledging the likely challenges but also the excitement. It was the most forward they had ever dared to be with each other, but it felt right. All they were doing was finally giving voice to the many thoughts and feelings that they had already shared but not yet given a name to.

Kagome's mind came back to their luncheon spot in the mall, when Inuyasha spoke again. "Well, I figure I should practice using the Metro, if we're going to try living on this side of the well part of the time," Inuyasha explained, watching her eat. "Although, I still feel nervous when the train goes underground, and I'm gonna have to brush up on my reading skills. I realize I can't quite remember all the characters on the signs."

"Some of the characters have probably been updated and added to the language since you learned to read. Don't worry about the stop names, though, you'll get used to them and remember where they are before long," Kagome reassured him before changing the topic. "So how was 'youkai practice' last night? You must have been really tired this morning. You didn't even move when I got up."

"Oh, yeah. Well, I started training with Tessaiga again last night," Inuyasha replied, referring to how he had been spending the afternoons and some nights in the feudal era training with his new body. "It's definitely responsive: it has way more power than it ever did before. So apparently, being part human isn't a necessary prerequisite to wield it, like I had feared. Still, I don't fully understand the seal my father placed on it all those years ago, but he clearly anticipated that I would always be its master. But to answer your question, I feel pretty drained. I'm having a hard time focusing my youkai energy, the _youki_, through the fang. The youki just keeps coming out explosively, not as anything controllable. I guess, now, I feel like I've got more power than I even know what to do with," he said, smirking and wearily rubbing his eyes at the irony.

"I know you're going to get it," Kagome replied reassuringly, rubbing one of his forearms.

He smiled at her and impulsively rubbed the freshly exposed back of his neck. He made a face and then asked her yet again, "Kagome, are you sure I don't look really bad with my hair like this? I've noticed a lot of people looking at me really strangely, like those people in the bookstore. Also my neck and head feel so much colder when I go outside. I know I said wanted to try a haircut, but I'm not sure it was such a good idea after all…"

Kagome couldn't help but giggle at him. He blushed crimson so his face and neck almost matched the burgundy hoodie he wore under an attractive grey cargo jacket, lined with red and black plaid. Along with the top pieces, he was also wearing the trim, black dyed jeans, and the sporty grey athletic shoes she picked out for him. With his freshly cropped hair, short in the back but with the bangs still full and boyish, he looked a just like men's clothing model, right out of a catalogue. "Inuyasha, the only problem might be that you look too good. I'm realizing I need to assert my territory around you, or some other girl's gonna try to move in on you," she said lowering her voice steamily, to which Inuyasha cutely turned red again. "Speaking of which, Mom wants us to look at the catering menu for the wedding reception tonight when I get home, you gonna be free?"

"Yeah, I guess so. I'll just be happy as long as there's ramen in there somewhere," he replied offhandedly. Then, he lowered his voice an octave and cast his fiancée a smolderingly desiring look. "To be honest, though, tonight I think I'm a little more interested in what you and I might be doing _after_ we finish looking at the wedding stuff."

A hot chill ran down Kagome's spine, and she thought to herself again, _Ah, yes, I am __**so **__lucky!_

::

_There's something touching my face_, Sesshomaru thought to himself.

_Yes, there's something there, _another part of his brain said.

_Well, just twitch your mouth. It'll go away,_ the first part of his brain answered.

It was a very strange conversation, Sesshomaru thought. Everything had been strange lately. He realized he'd begun to dream, which must have meant he was sleeping. Indeed, he was buried beneath so many layers of cottony sleep that he couldn't possibly be awake.

Sometimes he heard muffled voices through the thick curtains of his velvety slumber. Mostly it was Rin's voice. Occasionally, Jaken's grating tones made it through. Another vaguely familiar, male voice reverberated around the recesses of his mind from time to time, droning on in an unrecognizable chant-like language. His body felt heavy like lead, and the temperature seemed to be in constant flux between two extremes, hot and cold, like a desert. And it was mostly dark, very dark, except for the increasingly longer occasions when a thin strip of light appeared on what seemed to be a fuzzy, slanting horizon in the inky blackness.

_It's on your nose, _his brain told him. Whatever had been on his upper lip before had apparently changed location. _Get it off. Get if off. _

He imagined the whoosh of the fly's wings as the buzz of the insect echoed into his ears. He felt its tiny wisp-like legs hop from the bridge of his nose to the tip.

"GET OFF!" he awoke to his own deranged shout followed by his own sneeze. Unbelievable pain shot through his chest. Light flooded into his pupils, and his eyes snapped open searching for the source of his discomfort. His sight darted from here to there, but it was like he couldn't focus on any one thing, because everything seemed to be in a bizarre haze like he was looking through a smudged window. Similarly, he became aware of his own gasping, but it sounded oddly far off and ill-defined to his ears.

His view of the room slowly spun onto its side, as panic surged through his veins. He caught sight of a strange appendage—an arm, yes, his arm— twitching about like a fish out of water. Mentally, he commanded what felt like every ounce of his strength into regaining control of that phantom limb. Finally, he drew it close to his core in a pathetic effort to bring comfort to the splitting pain emanating from somewhere near his sternum. He felt his muscles going rigid along with an uncontrollable tightening in his lungs. He wheezed and tried to cough. A shadowy darkness was creeping into the corners of his vision, when he heard the pounding of someone's feet followed by the rattle of the shoji door.

:

When Rin finally made it into Sesshomaru's room after hearing him yell, she was both terrified and excited by what she might find. However, his muffled shout worried her that something might be attacking him again.

Instead, she found him splayed halfway out of bed and fearfully hyperventilating. Immediately concerned that he might reopen his chest wounds, she fell to the floor and rhythmically rubbed his back. Soothingly, she shushed him, urging him to calm down.

"Lord Sesshomaru, can you hear me? It's me, Rin. You must slow your breathing down or you will hurt yourself. Try to take some deep breaths. That's it," she said shifting him back under the covers, once he managed to inhale fully a few times. She felt a rush of glee at his response to her words and touch.

Sesshomaru had closed his eyes as he fought to control his breathing, and for a moment she just knelt and watched him. He swallowed roughly after several minutes and asked for a drink of water. She lifted his head and helped him take a few small sips from a cup. Then, still lying down with the cover up to his chin, he turned two startlingly beautiful, greyish-brown eyes in her direction. She suppressed a shutter, and at last he spoke. "I was attacked," he remarked plainly.

"Yes and severely injured," she added.

He paused, staring straight ahead before asking, "How long have I been out for?"

"Almost eight weeks," she replied.

He bit his dry, cracked lips. "My body is greatly weakened. I have never suffered damage like this before," he stated.

"Yes, and you still need more rest. Maybe now that you are awake, perhaps you can be up and about in just three or four more weeks-," she began to say.

"That's not possible," he interrupted, sounding disturbingly confident. "I'll be better before that. Apparently, while I was unconscious, my body's extraordinary healing capabilities must have been limited to the more basic functions necessary to sustain my life. Undoubtedly, now that I am awake and able to exercise conscious control over myself, the healing process will go much more rapidly. Then, I will kill the one who did this to me," he finished as if the plan was all set.

Rin felt nervous beads of sweat prickle the back of her neck. How would she ever convince him that things wouldn't be that simple? _And_ keep him from coming completely unhinged? On top of everything, in his very long life, few people had probably ever deigned to contradict Sesshomaru.

However, she hoped she'd avoided the tougher problems for today, for at the moment the young man before her had a dreamy look about him, and his eyes were beginning to droop shut.

That was before he mumbled, "One other thing, Rin: I realize that I barely recognized my own hand just now—"

_Oh kami, has he figured it out already?_ Rin heard her brain scream, snapping back to attention.

"What happened to my claws?" he finished.

The young woman knew she likely looked overly alarmed by his inquiry. She prayed that, as he was obviously quickly falling into fatigue again, he wouldn't notice her expression.

"Your claws? I-I cut them," she blurted out.

"What?" he asked, cracking a heavy eyelid to look at her.

"I cut them. You were having tumultuous, fever-induced dreams, and I feared that you might unconsciously scratch open your wounds. So, I cut your claws," she explained, feigning decisiveness.

"I've never done that before… They'll have to grow back quickly," he concluded drowsily, as if saying so would threaten them to do so.

"Well, you get some rest. I'll come back later to tend to you," Rin said, readjusting the bedcovers ever so slightly before rising to leave the room.

_Thank the heavens above that I trimmed and braided his hair so that he might not notice that for a while! _she mused, turning to gently shut the shoji door after she left the room and releasing a long sigh of relief. Little did she know, someone was waiting for her just outside the door.

"What did you just tell Lord Sesshomaru?" Jaken asked in alarm, the question accusingly rhetorical. Her hands still on the wooden door frame, Rin closed her eyes and quickly braced herself before the imp opened his mouth again. He got only as far as "You li—" before she loudly shushed him and abruptly took off at a fast walk down the hall.

As she hoped, Jaken followed her at a run, his short legs unable to match her wider gait. "Did you hear me, Rin? Rin? Where are you going?!" he panted, until she stopped suddenly, satisfied that they were out of Sesshomaru's immediate range of hearing. "You lied to Lord Sesshomaru! I heard you! What are you doing?" Jaken whined in horror once more.

Her back still turned to him, Rin impulsively clenched her fists, unable to contain her frustration with the little demon's criticism any longer. She whirled on him and began to verbally pelt him, her words clipped and acerbic: "Yes, yes I did! I lied to Lord Sesshomaru, Jaken! He only just woke up, minutes ago, for the first time in almost two months, so I thought, 'Maybe I won't tell him right off that the very core of his identity has been taken from him and that he's living on borrowed souls!'" she spat.

Jaken looked at her like she had two heads before he began to pull nervously at his own face. "Oh don't you see?" he moaned. "It's going to be so much worse when he finds out the truth now! He will see it as we have unnecessarily drawn out the shameful extension of his life. Then, inevitably, he will waste no time in immediately killing one of us. After that he'll command the survivor to kill him and, finally, him or herself as a matter of honor! If we are lucky he will not haunt our dead bodies as further punishment for deceiving him," he concluded, trembling.

"Oh give me a break! Would you listen to yourself?" Rin asked, throwing her hands up.

"Er – what?" Jaken stuttered.

"All of what you said adds up exactly to the reason why we _cannot_ tell Lord Sesshomaru the truth! Think: he is going to be extremely distraught when he finds out what really happened, and I think it's very likely he may try to hurt himself," Rin started. "That's why I lied – to keep him safe. I will do everything in my power to protect him, even from himself, and if that means lying to him, then so be it! And Jaken, if you-you," here she struggled for the right words before settling on and lowering her voice dangerously, "If you _love_ Lord Sesshomaru as much as I do, then you'll understand that. Otherwise, get out my the way now."

Jaken looked thunderstruck, but still she wasn't finished. The gates had been opened, and the flood would not be stopped. "And another thing, Jaken: you seem to have an awful lot of opinions about how I handle things with Lord Sesshomaru, for one who has not stood before him more than once since his transformation. What are you afraid of anyway?" she asked, her voice rising with her temper. "Surely it's not that he'll kill you on the spot, because he's obviously too weak to do that. Or are you just too ashamed to serve him now that he is basically human?" she seethed. "Well?"

If it was possible, the little imp demon's eyes had opened even wider than usual. He looked completely dumbfounded, frozen to the spot, as she swept away down the hall.

::

That night, Rin laid awake in bed, unable to sleep. She looked across the room at her small collection of personal items. They weren't many as she, Jaken, and Sesshomaru hadn't spent much time in the big mansion on the rocks over the years. Constant travelling had meant owning a sparse number of things and mainly only the essentials. When she needed something, Sesshomaru gave her the necessary money, and she bought whatever it was at the closest market. So, on top of her dresser, all there was included a plain fan, a simple wood-backed hand mirror, a tortoise shell comb and brush, and a red, silk hair ribbon. No decorations. No other accessories. No make-up. None of the things a normal girl her age might have in her chambers.

Having thought about it more and more over the years, Rin realized that, for the most part, she actually didn't mind not being ordinary. She had travelled far more, spent more time outdoors, met more people, and enjoyed more freedom, than most women. All this and her very life, she owed to Sesshomaru.

Although, the young woman couldn't know it, for she had no one her age or gender to ask, she still couldn't help being ordinary in some regards. So, she had noticed as she got older, that her relationship to both Sesshomaru and Jaken was changing… and becoming less simple.

Take earlier that day, for example, she thought to herself. She hadn't really meant to lash out so strongly at Jaken. She knew she had probably hurt him badly by suggesting that he didn't care about Sesshomaru. She simply knew this to be untrue, judging by the way he had moped around constantly since Sesshomaru had gotten hurt, even if he didn't go in to visit their master, for whatever reason…. Similarly, she couldn't forget the many hours the little imp had spent watching over and playing with her when she was small. So while he might not have always thought very highly of humans, Jaken hardly had a true aversion to them. Her accusations had been heated and unfair. She felt sorry for being so brazen, but she knew this had turned into a recurring regret over the last few years, as she entered her adolescence. There just seemed to be an unexplained friction continuously growing between her and the two men in her life, the conflict with each of them developing very differently.

Rin could remember always enjoying Sesshomaru's attention, as non-emotive an audience as he had always been. Regardless, over time she became confident in the knowledge that he found her presence agreeable, or he would not have allowed her to stay with him, she believed. But as she grew older, she found she yearned for his notice ever more, but she wanted it in a new, different way that she had trouble defining at first.

It was no longer that she just wanted his simple approval or acceptance. First, she wanted his time. She waited for nothing more than a few special moments each day in which she might catch him looking out pensively over the land or before she went to sleep at night, when she might mention some small thing to him. It might be the condition of the weather, or some observation she made during their travels that day. Maybe he'd reply to her, and they'd share a few casual words before he'd walk off or fall silent. Feeling greedy then, though, she wanted his smile, that rare wisp of emotion he rarely showed, but she wanted to be the one to draw it out of him, to be the one for whom he'd really smile a true smile. When she was a little older still, she began to crave his gaze. She'd watch him, differently from when she was little, as they'd travel along or sit around the fire, as she cooked her dinner, hoping to catch him watching her back. She wanted those golden eyes on her, but they seldom were, and not in the way she desired. So she wound up feeling ignored, even though she realized that her expectations were growing absurd. Yet, that didn't stop her from ultimately lusting for his touch upon her skin. Even the most innocent, brush of his hand against her cheek would have been enough, she thought naively. However, she grappled with her disappointment, and predictably her frustration slipped out, often in little snips and snaps, often with Jaken, with whom she talked the most, and to her horror, occasionally with Sesshomaru.

She had wondered how she could ever get him to respond to her in the way she wanted, if she could barely get him to notice her. Furthermore, Jaken frequently got in the way of her maneuvering whenever she'd think she'd caught Sesshomaru alone. She had even started to feel competitive with Jaken for Sesshomaru's attention, even though the reasonable half of her mind realized this was paranoid and ridiculous of her.

So, all of these feelings of desire, angst, and frustration built up inside of Rin for many months prior to Sesshomaru's crisis. That was why she took off in an emotional huff right before he was cut down. Naturally, after that, all of her feelings of infatuation with him translated into an unshakeable loyalty to and protectiveness over Sesshomaru. Looking back at her attack on Jaken, she realized the real extent of her possessiveness and felt guilty. She would try to find Jaken and apologize to him the next day. However, she would not yield in her service to Lord Sesshomaru. She would ensure his life as well as she knew how. She resolved to do whatever she could to help him recover.


	10. Chapter 9

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. **

**Note: Hey all this chapter was edited on 5 May 2013. I actually decided to move the first part of what was originally Chapter 10 to this chapter, because something didn't feel right about the flow of the story as I was trying to go forward. Except for the last sentence of this chapter now, nothing else was changed.**

**:::**

Sesshomaru was starting to get frustrated with Rin. That was what the Lord of the Western Lands thought to himself, as he lie awake in the wee hours of the morning. He was reviewing what had come to pass since he regained consciousness, trying to determine what he should do going forward.

Over the last nine days since he first woke up, he had started to see that his recovery would take more effort than he originally thought. His initial tactic was just to rest, sleep, and move as little as possible, which had always worked for him before. However, he quickly saw that this did nothing to improve the soreness in his neck, back, and legs, so he concluded moving around might instead speed the process up. He didn't need any more rest; on the contrary, he needed to start building up his strength.

So, a week after his initial reawakening, restless, he woke early, similarly to today. Slowly and painstakingly, he focused on turning himself over on to his stomach, carefully trying not to disturb the delicate areas on his chest. Once he accomplished that, he spent the first two hours of daylight pushing himself up on to his elbows. From that position, until his strength ran out, he extended his arms to push his upper body up from the futon as much as possible. After accomplishing one very shaky, full push up he allowed himself to stop, as sweat rolled down from his temples. He could not believe how much his body had deteriorated; in fact, never before had he even contemplated this level of weakness. It just wouldn't do.

When Rin appeared a little while later with his breakfast of medicinal soup and tea, he notified her of his adjusted recuperation plans: he intended to begin walking as soon as possible, and he would require her help to do it. Noting that he needed a little more rest after his morning upper body training, he asked her to come back that afternoon and help him begin working out his legs. To this, he noticed that the girl nodded her agreement somewhat vaguely, and she had been listening only distractedly before that. He had even had to pause in his brief description of his plans, when she clumsily dropped his nearly empty tea cup on to the floor and subsequently hurried to blot the liquid off the tatami paneling. The thought occurred to him that she might be very tired, and so he suggested that he might rest and that she should too.

Later, she did come...eventually. Although he had expressed to her that he only needed a brief rest before he could practice again in the afternoon, the sun dipped low, almost completely obscured behind the tree tops before she returned to his room. And then she assisted him, but in a much unfocused way. If he asked her to help him move his knee up and to the left, then she moved it down and to the right. He tried not to get too upset with her as she seemed somehow over-stretched due to the demands of his invalidism. Yet, as she fumbled through his commands, he remembered how before he had fallen unconscious, he began to think that he might need to have a word with Rin about her difficult behavior. Sometimes he couldn't seem to figure out what put her into such agitated or dark moods. Some days she had been just down right unpleasant or even belligerent. It was so unlike her sweet and happy nature as a child. He couldn't mark the moment when the change had taken place, but she seemed strained in her relationship with him. Her acerbic attitude had actually reached a sort of fever-pitch when, suddenly, she had taken off the day of his attack. He didn't know what had made her return, but lying there in the predawn darkness, he considered asking her about it in due time.

He had figured whatever was bothering her would pass over by the next day, so as she made out of the room with his empty soup bowl and water cup, he asked her to come to his room again the next morning. However, once more she was tardy, apparently tied up with the washing this time. Trying to keep his cool despite his resurgent irritation, he told her to let Jaken do that next time, to which she mumbled something about trying to find him.

The morning's session then progressed in mediocrity as he accomplished, be it painfully, finally all of the motions that he had planned out for himself. Again, Rin assisted half-heartedly, which only spurred his impatience and urgent need to recover his strength, so as she got up to go, he suddenly had a desire to do one last thing: he would try to kneel.

He called her back, to which she returned with frustrating timidity. He told her in a rush, as he began feel the excitement of what he was about to attempt, that he wanted to use her to pull himself up. Her eyes widened a little, but she agreed. Still, she stood before him with her hands at her side.

He sighed loudly. "No, no," he told her, "you have to put your hands out," he grabbed her wrists and positioned them, "_like this_, so I can grab on to you." He looked up at her to check for her comprehension, but her face was just pale and blank.

The first attempt, he clumsily wound up slipping and tugging her sleeve, so that her collar shifted, exposing her right collar bone. She blushed and pulled back instantly so that he fell back on the futon, as she readjusted her clothing. Sharply, the Master of the West ordered her to roll back her sleeves and kneel down in front of him: "Yes, that's right. Now just come _closer_," he ordered, maneuvering her again.

The second time, Sesshomaru moved with frenzied speed. Mentally, he struggled to command his frozen muscles to contort and contract. The pain radiating from his chest seemed to reach right through to his spine, rapidly depleting his control over his lower muscles.

He clutched at her arms and shouted at her repeatedly to hold still and stop bending away. Unhappily, she protested that she couldn't help it. Growling, he abruptly reached out for her shoulder. He failed to notice that his other hand had once more dropped down inside her wide sleeve, which had come unrolled again in the in the struggle. Rin, however, immediately noticed, as she felt the front folds of her yukata separating. Instinctively, she leaned away from him again, but he was already unintentionally kneeling on her skirt as well, causing her to tumble backward. As Sesshomaru still held on to her shoulder, they toppled over in a heap, and he wound up with his cheek pressed into her chest. She flushed crimson from head to toe as he embarrassingly hurried to roll of off her.

It went without saying that practice was done for that day.

On the third day of his new recovery regiment, yesterday, Rin appeared very late with his breakfast and stayed only long enough to dispense it to him. Then she scurried off, saying that an issue had arisen at the stables that needed immediate attention. All day, Sesshomaru waited for her to have a free moment, but she didn't stop at all, and he didn't feel it would be productive for him to ask her help again so soon. So that day, he stayed in bed. Before he fell asleep he reached a decision: the next day he'd just do it himself.

So he fell asleep early that night and was now awake again at the present moment, just a bit before dawn. For a while, still remaining stationary, he just worked on slowly contracting and relaxing each of his muscles from his toes to his head. Everything was so stiff, and the responses so slow. He just couldn't understand what had happened to him. As soon as he regained his full mobility and strength, he was going to hunt down whoever had done this to him, beat it out of them how they did it, and then tear them into gruesome little shreds.

Next, just as the first dim glow of dawn radiated past the shutters lowered over the window, he managed to roll over as he had practiced. He pushed himself up on to his hands without too much difficulty. From there he trained his thoughts on moving his right knee, which he had only done so far with much assistance from Rin.

_Just lift your knee. Just lift your knee and move it forward_, he thought it like a mantra, imagining every little muscle from his lower abdomen to his lower leg mobilizing. Finally, shakily, he dragged the sleepy leg forward. With a little repositioning from his right hand while he balanced the rest of his upper body weight on his left, he managed to get his right leg and then the left under him, like a child preparing to crawl for the first time. He felt ridiculous: at least an hour's worth of work, and this is as much as the son of the great Inu no Taisho could accomplish?

No, he would walk today. He had to. His nose told him a full bath was needed desperately, while he longed to change into some clothes not permanently creased from sleep and his own perspiration.

It was all sort of a strange nightmare that could only end finally when he got himself up and about again, he told himself, as he creakily clawed his way across the tatami mats. His nails had started to grow a little bit thankfully, but he was disappointed to find that they were coming in weak and soft, their color ugly and yellowed. Exposure to moon and sunlight and a good hunt would take care of that though, he knew. _It will have to_, he thought as he clung to the heavy doorframe, readying himself to pull his body upright against it.

_Ichi, ni, san_, he counted and threw himself into it. For several minutes, he fought and sweated and pushed against the floor and grabbed at the door frame, until finally he stood, panting and clinging to the dark wood.

Slowly, carefully, he edged around to face the shoji. His knees and ankles trembled as if there were a small earthquake, but he was standing. Feeling the strain across his chest, he slid the shoji open. Momentarily, he was blinded by the normally soft morning light. His head spun comfortably at the stimulation, either from the light, or at being fully vertical for the first time in weeks, he didn't know. He took a few deep breaths, remembering his first bout of hyperventilation, not eager to repeat it. Thankfully, the spinning subsided.

He looked down the hall and felt another wave of discomfort at the scene. It was a particularly dark hall in the manor, windowless, but still he saw: swirling scratches and smeared blood... The evidence of the battle stretched all the way down the hall. Glancing to the side, he saw that even the door jamb he leaned on bore deep gouges. However, someone had obviously tried to rub away the blood stains, which were lighter on the frame than in the rest of the hallway.

A strange chill ran through him as he realized he had no recollection of the fight going past the dining room where he first spoke to the intruder, after her presumptuous entrance into his domain. She would pay for such flagrant disregard for his dominion and more still for the affront to his reputation. Maintaining any scrap of his honor now demanded swift and merciless punishment for the offender.

Still supported by the doorway, the Lord of the West stuck his head out into the corridor. Seeing no one around, he called a few times for Rin and Jaken, but no reply came. Peering down the hallway, he saw that all the doors were closed, accept the last, which was open just a crack and marked by a thin, escaping shaft of morning light. He guessed it must be Rin's.

Just as he was about to launch himself from the door toward a new holding place along the wall outside his room, he spotted something long and dark in the shadow of the door jamb. Leaning in the crevice between the wall and the wood was Tenseiga.

_The worthless sword_, he thought. It had done nothing for him when he was apparently being beaten to a pulp. _Although, perhaps it could now_, he smirked, wrapping his palm around the end of its hilt. Leaning his full weight on the sheathed blade, he found that it had finally found its true _raison d'être_ in his life: it made an excellent cane! So with one hand latching from one wooden wall joint to the next and the other clutching Tenseiga, he hobbled down the hall toward the open door.

At last he made it, his breathing labored and his mouth dry from the exertion, but he made it. He stepped into the beam of whitish morning light leaking through the opening in the door, leaned against door frame, and slid back the shoji.

The small collection of personal effects on the dresser top and her faded red and orange kimono spread out on the futon confirmed that it was Rin's room. Once again, he spoke her name aloud to check to see if she was present, and certain that she wasn't, he invited himself in and limped over to her futon to wait for her. For several minutes he caught his breath and let the aching that covered his body diminish a bit. He was just growing bored of waiting, when the brief flicker of the wings of a bird landing and quickly taking off from the ledge outside her window grabbed his attention. He had not looked out the window at his land in months! Leaning unsteadily on Tenseiga this time, he managed to rise from Rin's futon without crossing the entire room on his hands and knees. Feeling very pleased with his progress, he was shuffling toward the window excitedly, when he saw out of the corner of his right eye the flutter of something dark in color.

"Rin?" he asked, thinking she had walked up behind him. However, as he looked over his shoulder, he noticed only her dresser mirror. It must have been his own reflection, something else which he hadn't seen in ages.

_Oh, Kami_, _do I really want to see that right now?_ he asked himself sarcastically, knowing if he looked anything like he felt, he probably looked like an unbelievable mess. His curiosity won out though, and he backed up a couple steps to take another look.

Immediately, he began to squint at the figure in the mirror; the reflection he saw was so unexpected to him, there had to be something wrong, perhaps with his eye sight.

"What?" the word slipped between his lips. _What is this? Who is that?! _As suddenly as his sore neck would allow, he looked over his shoulder, disoriented, trying to see if there was anyone else there in the room.

No, there wasn't.

He fell into the dresser as he lunged to get closer to the mirror. Tenseiga clattered to the floor, and the mirror vibrated in its frame from the collision. His stomach flip-flopped as the stranger in the mirror drew closer too. Sick to his stomach, he pulled at the skin beside his mouth and watched as the disheveled stranger did the same. Never mind disheveled! Whose were those dark, hollow-looking eyes? That strange, sweaty, flushed face? And what about that greasy, dark mop of h-

Indeed, he had not even mentally processed the entire word before his hand began raking through the greasy bangs, which had been so resourcefully pushed back with their own natural oil to hold them. Yet, the young man's heart only really stopped, and he made the full connection when he pulled his shoulder length braid forward and really saw it for the first time: all his hair had been artfully, oh-so-practically bound up in long strips of silk, hiding each lock right down to the tips. His fingers rapidly clawed undone the silken knot and effortlessly, the thin strips of silk fell away allowing onyx-colored tresses to spill across Sesshomaru's shoulders.

_No. _

"Lord Sesshomaru?"

"No."

"What? Lord Sesshomaru, what are you-?" Rin began, unbelievably surprised and dread-filled to see him up and about so soon.

"_What is this?!_" he shouted madly, shaking a fistful of slate colored hair in her direction, where she still stood in the doorway. Her hair was still dripping from her bath and her cotton bathing yukata tied only loosely at her waist.

"I can explain," she responded, putting a steadying hand up.

"I doubt it! What happened to me?!" he strained, his throat tight with panic. His arms were beginning to quake from leaning his full weight on the dresser too long.

"Here, let me help you first," the girl said, noticing his fatigue. She threw down her damp bathing cloth and started toward him.

"No!" He cringed away. "Tell me now!"

"You were mortally wounded-" she tried to start.

"Then, you didn't find me like this? _What did you do to me_?" he yelled accusingly.

"Whatever attacked you must have taken or destroyed part your soul. We did the best we could. We replaced the missing piece with what was available at the time-" she tried to tell him, rushing the story.

"I don't understand what you're saying!" He spluttered fearfully, trying to deny this nightmare.

"You were dying! I had to do something!" Rin cried

"You're not making sense! _What happened?_" he demanded again.

"I found a Buddhist monk to revive you. He had to use _human_ souls. It saved you, but it also… changed you, Lord Sesshomaru. You're human now. I'm so sorry," she said, her voice sounding thin even to herself.

"No, that's not possible... you lied to me," he moaned barely above a whisper, his arms and back bowing as he looked in the mirror. He looked like someone. Who was it?

"Yes," Rin, said her courage mounting, "but I saved you, too," she said more firmly.

He now realized who he now resembled more than ever: the one individual who drove him the craziest, his brother the half-_human _Inuyasha. This had to be the greatest punishment of all. "You've destroyed me. I'd be better off dead," he choked out.

"And_ this_ is exactly why I lied to you!" she countered, her voice rising again.

"You don't understand!" He yelled and pounded his fists against the dresser top with strength neither Rin nor he had expected.

"I was protecting you!" she protested.

"_BUT I_ _DON'T WANT TO BE PROTECTED!_" he roared, and then his anger exploded. Suddenly, in a burst of adrenaline, his hands were on the brittle frame of the mirror, pulling it down.

Rin experienced the scene as if it were in slow-motion. She heard her own shocked squeak, as the mirror toppled toward the floor. Quickly, she covered her face with her hands and hopped back a step, all too aware of her bare feet. Glass exploded across the floor like torrential rains cascade down from the sky. Even the sound was deafening like the crack of thunder, right down to the tinkling of the last shard. At last she opened her eyes to find a few shiny splinters had come within millimeters of her toes, but none had touched her.

Although, she had lowered her hands from her eyes, her fingers remained pressed to her cheeks, as she absorbed the mess in stunned silence, unsure what to do next. She couldn't help but notice that Sesshomaru stood in the middle of a sea of splintered silver. Shards had landed on and all around his pale feet, but at the moment she hardly knew what to feel about him. She knew he wouldn't be happy when he found out, but she hadn't expected him to be so ungratefully nasty toward her. He had just thrown a mirror down in front of her and when she was half-dressed and had no shoes on, too.

Once more, she looked from the road map of broken glass on the floor back to the man in middle of all the wreckage. A bead of sweat rolled down his nose, as he panted and hung his head low over the dresser. He was obviously once again fighting just to remain erect. Mechanically, with the same base strength that had been keeping her going over the last two months, Rin swept up the bathing cloth which still lay near the door, unfolded it and threw it down over the glass between her futon and Sesshomaru. However, she refused to meet his eyes or say anything to him. Rather, she immediately dropped to the floor and began picking up shards of glass. She let her own long, damp, black tresses fall around her face, and she bit her lip until she thought it might bleed. There was no way she would let him see her upset, not now.

She listened, as he stumbled and crunched over the glass underneath the cloth and flopped back on her futon. For a while, he sat wheezing until he had control of his breathing, and then he struggled up off the blankets and limped out of the room. At last, she heard his uneven footsteps fade down the hallway, finally punctuated by the angry snap of his shoji door closing.

And then, unable to hold back any more tears, Rin sat down among the sparkling droplets covering her floor and cried.

:

The rest of the afternoon, after she picked up all of the glass from her bedroom floor, Rin spent in a full on catharsis. At last, she released all of the mixed emotions that had become bottled up and pressurized over the last few months. When eventually she felt like a wrung out sponge, she fell asleep in a heap on her futon not to wake up until after dark. Waking up in the pitch blackness, she panicked suddenly realizing that in her anger toward him, she had not brought Sesshomaru either his lunch or his dinner. Despite feeling trepidation at the thought of seeing him again after his earlier tantrum, Rin still scrambled down to the kitchen to make his soup and tea. However, when she nervously entered his room to give it to him, she found him already deep asleep, his perfect features now serene. A wave of irritation rippled through her, and she had to resist the urge to pour the bowl of soup over his beautiful, stupid head. She realized she loved him so much she wanted to pop, but at the moment she just didn't know what she was going to do with him, if he kept acting so nastily. Opting for maturity, she set the tray of liquid rations down beside his bed and crept out.

The next morning Rin woke even earlier and hurried through her bath, even though she still felt unbelievably exhausted from the previous day. She had decided that she still couldn't face Sesshomaru right away, so she promised herself that she would go out to the stables and visit Ah-Un for a while first; his quiet presence was always calming to her over the years, and she needed that now maybe more than ever.

Without waiting for her long hair to dry, she tossed a woven shawl over her head and set off the short distance down the rocks. The night had been cold, as winter was now coming on in earnest, and the morning was only marginally warmer. It was still enough for a dewy mist to hover over the earth, making everything look pale and ghostly in the morning light. As she picked her way along the narrow, grass-lined trail, chilled dew clung to her socks and the hem of her yukata. Lost in thought as the stable entrance came into view, she was thinking about everything that she had to catch up Ah-Un about (just because he couldn't talk back, didn't mean he didn't listen and deserve to know what was happening!) Still, she froze, when to her shock the breeze carried up the sound of someone's voice radiating from the stables.

"Come on! Come on!" came the voice in strained tones of irritation. Two forms, a smaller, limping one leading a larger, lumbering one melted out of the morning mist lingering by the stable door.

She realized quickly that Sesshomaru couldn't or just didn't see her on the foggy hillside. However, she saw and heard him all too clearly, as he emerged yanking on the two-headed demon's reigns. Her sheer disbelief at his brashness in coming outside in such cold, damp weather initially left her dumbstruck as the scene unfolded.

Sesshomaru growled, as he half-fell, half-pushed into the beast's muscular shoulder. Both of Ah-Un's heads looked down at him with a curious placidity that was so at odds with the man's agitation that it was almost comical.

"Don't look at me like that!" he snapped as he regained his balance with the help of what looked like the pole of a broomstick and tugged on the reigns again. "Even your power far exceeds mine now, so you resist me!" he scowled, more to himself.

He walked Ah-Un about 50 yards from the stable entrance and steered the beast around until he faced the building again. Sesshomaru commanded him to stay. A light breeze picked up and stirred the mist, as he backed up from creature about 10 yards, threw aside the make-shift cane and spread his arms wide.

He looked so exposed physically and emotionally, his torso completely unprotected and his face creased with all his pain and humiliation. Then he called out: "I beg you as my last remaining servant, end this pathetic existence. I cannot bare the shame of this desecration of my being. Help me die with some shred of my former honor!"

His cry echoed across the hills as he closed his eyes and tilted back his head with such finality. The sleeves of his dark yukata waved in the breeze like two funeral shrouds waiting for a body. Ah-Un merely bayed softly and looked around.

Rin wanted to yell out, and tell him how stupid he was, but the words were caught in her throat, stillborn. She couldn't speak, and she couldn't move. Only her eyes welled up with tears until her vision blurred, and the hot drops leaked over and splotched her cheeks. At last, she finally dragged the back of her hand across her eyes to clear them.

When she looked at the scene again, there stood only Sesshomaru, his pale face facing the grey morning sky and his sleeves rising and falling on the wind. Ah-Un was gone, though, nowhere to be seen.

Now, they really only had each other.


	11. New Chapter 10

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. **

**Notes: Hello, all. So a few updates on some changes I made to the fic: Those of you who have been reading the story so far will notice that this is the second time I've posted a "Chapter 10." That is because I sat down to look at where I was in the story and decided that I didn't like the flow of the most recent two chapters because of the way divided them. Therefore, I basically cut the original "Chapter 10" in half and put the scene of Rin and Sesshomaru at the stables at the end of "Chapter 9" where I had once envisioned it being in my mind. Now, this new "Chapter 10" starts off with the same entrance of our newest character, Anurak, followed by new material, which is marked with a (*) at the beginning of the paragraph so continuing readers can find it easily. Sorry for the hassle! **

**The only other change that was made beyond that is that at the beginning of "Chapter 1" where I have provided a "Part I" subtitle and a quote. **

**:::**

Anurak was still relatively new to Japan. To most of us at first glance, he might have seemed like any young traveler striking out in the world, spreading his wings for the first time, a common thing. This was all true, except that Anurak was hardly young or particularly ordinary by most standards, because he was not human but hanyou. Regardless, two years prior, when he had just turned 62 years old, the opportunity came up for him to set out from his homeland for the first time.

So that was how Anurak the hanyou came to find himself somewhere on Honshu, the central island of Japan, watching a cave carved into the side of a cliff and contemplating what would be perhaps the most ill-thought out, boldest thing he had ever done in his life.

It all started about three weeks after he arrived in Japan via a rickety, red-sailed, Chinese fishing barge. He was pleased at last to be traveling away from the coast's salty, fishy odor and back into the forest where he felt more comfortable, when he almost walked right into the path of a massive, black-furred, dog demon. He was relieved as always that when he ducked back into hiding, the terrifying beast went right past him; it appeared that the gift of being a able to blend in with the smell of local flora that came with being part-forest nymph would serve him well in yet another strange land. It was a good thing too, as Anurak later observed that the dark, monstrous demon was apparently on a mission to maim, kill, and/or eat anything larger than a squirrel that came into its path. It was possibly the largest demon the foreign hanyou had ever seen, so it didn't surprise him at all that its hunt was so prolonged. He had decided to follow it, of course always at a safe distance, his desire to know more about demon life in the rest of the world one of the reasons he set out to travel in the first place. He had heard things from other creatures and demons along the way on the continent about the Japanese demons, but this dog demon had exceeded all expectations! He really wanted a chance to talk with some of the demons while he was here, but for the moment, he was willing to just settle on following this one.

Around dawn, he followed the demon back to its lair. The cave in the cliff side was where it apparently went inside to sleep until nightfall. Also tired from a night of wandering, Anurak climbed to the top of the tree he hid in and fell asleep basking in the heat of the sun.

With no specific agenda for his travels, Anurak remained in his treetop until sundown. When he awoke, he climbed down the branches a bit, curious to see if the demon would hunt again that night. Almost an hour passed and Anurak was just getting ready to move on, when he noticed movement. A silhouetted figure appeared at the mouth of the cave. It was far too small to be the dog demon. Once again intrigued, he endeavored to follow it. It ambled through the underbrush, shifting between crouched, animal-like movements and walking partially erect, at which point it was no taller than a human. Its shadowy body was strangely lumpy and moved unexpectedly, so that Anurak had no idea what kind of demon it could be.

Then, it entered a clearing. Cautious about staying out of sight, Anurak hung back in the dark brush, as it stood up, stepped into the opening, and pushed down the hood covering its head. The clouds rolled back from the moon, and then Anurak saw: a demoness wearing a burlap cloak belted at the waist with a cord of rice threshes. The cloak was coarse and absolutely filthy, as was the she-demon, but in her matted hair she wore one pure, white feather that shone in the moonlight.

Anurak was already holding his breath at the sight of this wild being, when she lifted one arm toward the feather. Her sleeve fell back revealing raw, bloody flesh. Anurak's stomach twisted as the wound gleamed, its unhealthy wetness caught in the lunar rays. A gasp escaped him, and automatically the she-demon turned in his direction, feather in mid grasp. Quickly, he shrunk back further into the juniper bush under which he hid. The demoness waited several minutes just peering into the trees before she turned to go, dropping the feather so it expanded and took her away into the sky. Anurak was terrified, but he also noticed two sets of things: two eyes like garnets and the dark bruises that surrounded them.

(*) Anurak's thoughts drifted back to him on the ledge. Yes, it was those startling rhinestone-like eyes that had captivated him all day and were probably about to get him killed too. That was because Anurak had decided that he was going to save her.

He realized all too well that there were already several inherent flaws in his plan. First among them that she might not need saving at all. In that case, any being tough enough to willingly cohabitate with that bloodthirsty dog demon was almost certainly tough enough to tear a half-forest nymph to shreds as well. Then, of course, there was the threat that even if he did successfully spirit the demoness away, the beast might eventually come looking for its companion…

However, Anurak had decided he couldn't just forget about the mysterious demoness with the dirty, battered face and striking eyes. An image of his mother standing knee deep in rice paddy water leapt into his mind. Her sleeves and pant legs were rolled up, and she was reaching down to tend the little plants. "Never walk away from someone who needs your help, Anurak. Each being is significant and deserves to be treated that way," she had taught him. That was how he had learned.

So the hanyou puffed up his courage and crept down off the rocks. He had watched the dog demon stalk into the blackness of the forest several minutes before and had listened closely for any sign of its return. Deliberately, quietly, he tried to channel all the stealth of a sly kitsune demon. Still, he crossed the open space between the cliff-face and the cavernous opening with nervous rapidity. He clung to a small crevice by the mouth of the cave and pricked up his ears once more to make sure no one was coming. In one fluid motion, he dropped down into a tactical crouch and began his expedition into the stony cavity.

For several minutes he crept through dank darkness over cold, jagged rocks. It was far too dim to see properly, so the hanyou felt his way along the leftward wall of the cave as he moved. Thankfully the floor evened out for several paces, until he stumbled over something long, hard and dry. A hollow, percussive clatter echoed off the passage walls as the jostled object apparently knocked into others of its kind lying on the cave floor. Anurak cringed and waited for the sound to die away, replaced once more with silence. He sighed heavily, relieved that no response was triggered by the sound. He forced himself to relax enough to take one step forward, cautiously hoping to avoid more obstacles. He lowered his foot slowly and suddenly felt sick when his toes made contact with another of the same smooth, oblong objects. He traced the edge of it with his big toe and immediately recoiled as the image of what it was registered: bone. Losing his nerve and almost the contents of his stomach, the hanyou fell into the wall, his gaze darting here and there, as he wished in terror that he could throw off the impenetrable darkness like a too hot robe. _Other living things had died in this cave. Any minute, I could die here too_, his mind screamed.

That also meant that he idle in one place even less, though. He cast a longing look over his shoulder in the direction of the exit. With a will he didn't know he had, he suppressed the urge to retreat and told himself he had come too far to go back. Shaking wildly, he thrust his foot toward the floor once more. Sharp little bits of skeleton crunched between his toes, and his flight response became too much to bare. He jumped involuntarily and then barreled into the unseen, snapping and cracking with each clumsy stride. He was just picturing his own fleshless frame joining the collection beneath his feet when a glowing spot appeared to his right. Tripping loudly, he clawed his way along the wall, still dying a little bit with every crunch of the innumerable bones. The wall took a sudden jog as he approached the light, and he saw that the passageway now narrowed by half, creating an entrance way. Just out of sight there seemed to be another chamber lit with a fire, judging by the flickering, reflective quality of the light.

Holding his breath, Anurak slowly peeked around the edge of the stone. There in the center of the high-ceilinged chamber a fire burned, the blaze casting shadows around the cracks and spaces in the rocky walls. At last, he also had a visual of the sheer number of bones that littered the cave. They carpeted the floor in their dull, off-whiteness from wall-to-wall and right up to the edge of the fire, where the flames licked and blackened them with carbon. The room was a little warmer than it had been outside or in the passageway, but that was the only redeeming quality. A stale stench pervaded the place, serving as a further olfactory reminder that it was basically a huge tomb. Embers in the fire snapped, and already on edge, Anurak swung his attention in that direction. His sight focused beyond the lap of the flames though: there slumped a shrunken form with a weather-worn cangue collaring its neck. The right wrist was also encased in the cangue, while the other, left arm, the angry, red wound of which he recognized, hung free at the side of her body. It was beyond obvious that she not staying there of her own accord. Stumbling over a few skulls of deer and horses, Anurak drew closer to the crumpled being.

Carefully, he leaned forward, extending a reluctant hand to part the filthy hair that hung like a mop over her eyes. As he made contact, he flinched involuntarily, fearful that she would awaken and rip his arm off in hostility. Instead, thankfully unimpeded, he lifted the fringe to reveal the smudged and swollen visage he had reimagined so many times that evening. He knelt to get a better look at her face, trying to discern her true appearance. At the moment, with her features slack from unconsciousness, she looked so worn and vulnerable. Who was she really? Free of all the marring bruises, she might be quite stunning, he thought.

His heart nearly leapt into his throat, at the unexpected flicker of her eyelids. He continued to gently hold her bangs back, like one holding back a lace curtain in anticipation of seeing the rising sun. Her dark lashes slowly slid back, and he knelt lower again to look into the fiery gems he expected to see there. However, it was like the ocean had dashed out the sun or fog had smothered the morning light, for he now gazed instead into two emotionless, dull, grey orbs.

Too shocked, the hanyou forgot all caution, as he stared directly into her eyes. They had been deep red before. He had been sure of it, beyond a shadow of a doubt! Indeed, it was partially because of their startling shade that her stare had continued to pierce his heart all day. How now had they been drained of all color? Had someone blinded her in the last day?

It seemed to Anurak like he was just about a little too late in every way to save her. Aside from the possible blindness, wounds, and abusive bruises, she was malnourished and apparently mentally vacant tonight. Indeed, she might have been looking at him, at least in his general direction, but it was as if she wasn't seeing anything at all. Her half-opened eyes remained eerily unfocused, and her head lolled unchecked to one side. He couldn't believe the change in her since the previous evening and was just beginning to wonder if she was actually on the edge of death. Then, a conscious thought suddenly swam up from deep within her, briefly animating her. She swallowed dryly and for a second her jaw worked before she managed croak out a few jumbled words.

"Wait, wait! What did you say?" Anurak panicked, putting an encouraging hand to her face before he watched her slip back under. However, he immediately realized that she hadn't understood a word he said, as he had forgotten to speak in Japanese.

Frustrated with himself, he timidly brushed her less banged-up cheek a few times with his fingertips, hoping she would reawaken, but it was to no avail. He then leaned back on his haunches and studied the heavy, padlocked cangue chaffing into her neck and wrist admitting to himself that there was no way he could easily carry her away wearing that unwieldy thing. Hopelessly, he looked around the cave a few times, as if the answer of what to do next would just jump out at him. Miraculously, it did: just about a foot within the fire, an unnaturally bright-hot ember caught his eye. The key! He wanted to jump up and scream. As it was, he slipped on the carpet of bones scrambling toward the blaze.

The key was just a little too far in for him to knock it out of the flames with just any of the bones. He'd have to find one long enough. For a few minutes, he kicked around some of the bones in search of one the right shape and length. As he looked around, he thought about how whoever or whatever had locked her up evidently had total confidence in the fact that she would be too weak to get up and get the key herself, even though it was in plain sight. This likewise indicated a firm belief that apparently no one cared enough about her to come looking for her either. _ Sick, _he thought.

After a moment, he found what appeared to have been part of the rib cage of a large buck. The bone was the perfect shape, long and slender with a tapered curve at the end that looked like it would fit through the hole at the top of the key. He approached the fire and carefully lowered the curved end into the flames and successfully poked the tip through the key's hole. He gripped the bone tightly to avoid dropping it into the fire. This was wise, because just as he dragged the key to the fire's edge, a loud scuffling sound coming from the entrance of the cave nearly made Anurak jump a mile out of his skin.

Immediately, the hanyou just felt like dying on the spot. Without even seeing it, he knew it was the beast. He only had a matter of moments to act. He looked down at the key, still glowing red-hot at his feet.

Soon, the monster's dark frame abruptly filled the cave. From its massive fangs hung the limp body of an adult bear. The dog dropped the carcass between its feet and ravenously set upon it. Anurak felt as though he was going to pass out watching it noisily peel off hulking pieces of flesh that looked like his now scorched right palm. The pain was so terrible that he felt his sanity slowly fraying away. It had been everything he could do not to shriek and throw the key away as he had picked up the blazing thing and unlocked the cangue. He was now pressed against the wall with the prisoner slung over his back, his unburned left hand holding her arms together in front of his chest. The hanyou realized that he had stupidly just left the unlocked cangue lying flat and open on the ground. He hid barely in the shadows of a chink in the wall separated from the demon only by the fire. All the demon needed to do was look up from its feast for even one moment toward one of the two directions, and they'd be slaughtered in an instant.

At the moment, it was distracted, though, and Anurak needed to use that to their advantage. He supposed the only reason the thing hadn't smelled them yet was because it was so caught up with its most recent catch. The hanyou started to slide along the wall again, as soundlessly as possible on his tiptoes to avoid the bones along the way. Nervously, he took his first step into a patch of wavering light stretching out from the fire that fell against the wall.

A couple drops of perspiration hung distractingly off the tip of Anurak's nose; sweat positively painted his face from the pain and fear. If only his hand didn't feel like it was radiating the heat of twelve suns! His left hand, with which he was holding the prisoner's wrists together, was getting sweaty, and her skin was slipping gradually from his grip. Bouncing on the balls of feet, he tried to move her weight up on his back to improve his hold on her. However, he badly miscalculated and their combined weight started to cause him to tip over further into the splash of light. He swung his left foot forward, wishing he could just step down and stop their fall. He looked down and watched as his toes moved toward a particularly dry looking skeleton of something. Any moment, the snap of old collagen and protein would explode off the stone wall. In his brain, Anurak already saw the image of glistening fangs coming for him.

His panic made him feel like they were falling forward in slow motion. Toes touched bone. Brittleness gave way beneath the weight. However, the sound of it was not heard. Instead, the whining howl of multiple high-pitched, drawn-out canine cries flooded the enclosure, multiplying and washing over everything like waves. The hellish beast had only but a second to glance at Anurak kidnapping the prisoner before the skittering of dozens of claws against rock drowned out everything. Flashes of grey and brown fur flicked past Anurak, encircling the larger demon, which had gotten to its feet in a rage. A pack of wolves now stood snarling as one at the giant black dog. Anurak and the prisoner were all but forgotten as the wolves began to close in on it. Hurrying as fast as he could, Anurak ran into the dark passageway. Behind him the vicious barks of the wolves started to rip through the air followed by a different thunderous roar. Scuffling ensured. Against the wall, the weak light cast by the fire was snuffed out. Pained whines echoed after Anurak, as he spirited the prisoner to freedom out into the cool night.


	12. Chapter 11

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. **

A week passed and Rin and Sesshomaru said almost nothing to each other. At least, nothing of any substance outside of what was absolutely necessary. They mostly avoided one another, only awkwardly passing one another in the halls while he took his daily exercise.

When Sesshomaru became strong enough to stop taking his meals in bed, they began occasionally eating together, although it was typically a dour affair. He also ceased drinking the medicinal soups left for him by Miroku, having realized they were mainly fowl tasting and probably had none of the magical healing properties he originally mentally assigned them. It was then, one night that he sullenly asked to eat whatever Rin was eating for dinner. The girl naturally struggled to decide what to serve him, as he had never eaten human cuisine and could request nothing. That first night that he ate her cooking, she felt absolutely ridiculous with nervousness only to realize that worrying about what he might think of her skills was purely outrageous; she had forgotten that he would dislike _anything_ she could set before him. However, if she was really honest with herself, she had come to find it very entertaining to watch out of the corner of her eye, as he tried new things during each meal. With every wince, wrinkle, and scrunch of his nose, he automatically showed his appraisal of each distinct flavor. She just had to remember not to take it personally.

Even now, as they sat at the breakfast table she stole a glance at him, as he chomped rigidly down on a piece of pickled radish. Predictably, the sour taste hardened his lips into a tiny, thin line before he disdainfully retuned the remainder of the little, yellow disk to his dish. Having finished chewing, he stiffly set his chopsticks down on the rest in front of his plate. Then, he spoke, "So you said it was my _brother's _monk that did this to me?"

A little surprised that this was where they would be starting their mealtime conversation today, Rin swallowed what she was eating and replied, "Yes."

"Then we will go find him. In three days, we will depart for my brother's village," he announced and rose from the table.

:

Three days later, they set off. At this point in the season, it was quite cold, so Rin had spent the intervening time preparing things for their trip while Sesshomaru rested a bit longer. From around the manor, she gathered blankets and heavier clothes to layer. At the market, she used the money Sesshomaru had approved for her use and picked up dry rations and useful medicines. She ordered the rat demons in the stables to groom and dress two of Lord Sesshomaru's best horses and instructed the little demons to follow the usual protocol for during their lord's absence. If the little rodents were aware of Sesshomaru's recent transformation, they did not show it and went along with all of the instructions, as usual, having been assured that they would still be paid while the master was away.

The young man and woman mounted their horses in the early hours of the morning. As Rin settled into her saddle, she shivered slightly, not yet acclimated to the chilled air. Yet, she also felt strangely comforted. Travel had become most natural to her over the years, and as they departed now, it reminded her of the hundreds of times they had done it before during better times. Times when Jaken and Sesshomaru had taken care of _her,_ and not the other way around.

She realized now that all that time she had been wishing to be treated like an adult, she had never expected the hardship and responsibility that could come with that. Over the past two months, fate had dispensed adulthood upon her, and while she now felt slightly soothed back on the road, she knew the effect was only residual, the mildly carefree feeling artificially produced by her memories. Their lives had changed completely, totally altering them as a pair and as individuals. The shelter of childhood had fallen away that autumn, and she learned that her "protector", her Lord Sesshomaru, was neither all-powerful nor irreproachable in his behavior. Rather, he would clearly bare his disadvantage with a vengeance. She would have to begin making her own strength in her life from now on.

Still, she resolved that she had not yet given up on him. Yet, she was going to do her best to live a happy life, because she deserved it. If she could pull him out of his pool of self-pity and convince him to do the same as a result of her own positivity, then all for the better.

Therefore, on the morning of January 2nd, as the first rays of dawn glimmered off the morning frost, Rin made the following pact with herself: _Because apparently no one else can or will do it for me now, whether I do it for others or not, I am truly going to look out for my __**own**__ protection and happiness from this point forward._

**:::**

**Note: Hey, everybody! A series of mini, set-the-scene-type chapters, like this one, are coming your way. Hopefully, this will help me post a little more regularly too. Unfortunately, I'm in the middle of moving right now, so updates might be a little patchy for a couple of weeks. Hang in there, though! I haven't forgotten you guys!**


	13. Chapter 12

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. **

Miroku knew it was not right that he had not been back to see Sesshomaru and Rin in close to two months. Since reuniting with Sango and Kohaku in Nagoya, though, it wasn't as if he'd had much of a choice. It wasn't as if he'd had much of a choice. That's not to say it wasn't always close to mind. On the contrary, it weighed on him like a massive rock that seemed to get a little heavier in proportion to each good thing or happy occasion that now happened. For everything that made his life worth living, he had now seriously jeopardized each one via the dark curse that now marked both Sesshomaru and him.

Perhaps the heaviest reward of all, as he had dared to hope before everything went awry on his brief excursion west, he returned to find his lovely, beaming wife with confirmation that she was in fact with child. Where he once would've only been ecstatic, he was now also incredibly sad to hear this news. Yet another ill-fated monk's child would be born in the shadow of a terrible family curse.

Despite, being completely worn to the bone and the mark in his foot still inducing mental aching, if not physical pain, Miroku managed to submerge his forlorn feelings in order to convincingly join in Sango's revelry. She merely asked if he was tired later that evening and if everything was alright with Sesshomaru. After having spent the time in the air with Ah-Un rehearsing his answer, he casually remarked that he hadn't mentioned it sooner, because it was no big deal. Sesshomaru had indeed been injured by a demonic curse, but Miroku had been able to provide sutras to heal him (not _entirely_ a lie, more of a reconstruction of the facts). Thankfully, after that, the topic was quickly forgotten the next day. Instead, they excitedly prepared to travel back east to share the good news of Kohaku's return and their family's impending expansion with their friends.

From there, Miroku felt like he had blinked and the time had gone by. Upon returning to the village, they were immediately recognized and hurried to Kaede's house, bursting with curiosity once they saw the ruined shrine building.

Kaede was of course surprised and overjoyed at seeing them so soon. Steaming, golden cups of tea were poured and hearty, friendly-tasting bowls of mushroom and rice porridge were consumed. They took turns regaling each other with all the events of the past two months. All the warm words and smiles floated through Miroku's mind. _Kohaku, thank the kami you are safe and finally free, _Kaede had said, patting the boy's forearm, as he sat beside her at the fire pit. _So Inuyasha's finally got his wish? He went to go get her?! Eeee, when's the wedding? _ Sango's excitedly questioned. _Ah, Inuyasha will be more insufferable than ever_, he himself had joked.

It would've been a wonderful evening all around, if Miroku hadn't felt guilty for the horrible secret he was hiding. At one point in the evening, it looked like he wouldn't keep it very long. As Kohaku sat telling everyone again about the first moment he realized his freedom, the monk looked up across the fire to find the old shrine maiden looking at him, a strange expression on her face. Quickly, diverting his gaze back to his young brother-in-law, Miroku wondered if some effect of the curse he now bore was actually paranoia. However, later in the evening, when he stepped outside to get a breath of fresh air before bed, he suddenly found himself alone on the porch with Kaede, almost as if she had followed him out.

He made small talk: "It's quite cold now isn't it?"

"_So da ne_," she replied casually. Silence fell between them again, and just as he was about to turn and check that the old woman was still awake, she spoke.

"Has something been troubling you, Miroku?" The question was very pointed, and now she was looking right at him. He struggled not to sweat, even despite the cold.

"No, no," he began, trying to steady his voice, "maybe a little worn out from all the travel and excitement, but otherwise I'm very well. Why do you ask?"

"Mmm, no reason," she replied, sounding unconvinced, and her brow furrowing ever so slightly. "Just thought there's been a lot going on recently."

_Ah, and you don't even know the half of it, _he had thought, realizing that mercifully no one had bothered to mention his visit west.

:

For about a week, they rested in the village until Kagome and Inuyasha returned for a visit. There was much squealing when the girls ran to each other to share their good news. Kohaku stood shyly with the men, but still smiling. Smirking, Miroku berated Inuyasha for doing something as dramatic as annihilating the village shrine without their presence. The demon merely grumbled that the monk would certainly be there for the aftermath, as a certain old woman had promised that Inuyasha would rebuild it come spring. So another night of celebratory drinking and eating was passed in Kaede's hut.

The friends spent the next few days happily enjoying each other's company. It was a strange but welcome change to all of them to not have to worry about enemies or finding jewel shards. Instead, Kagome and Sango discussed modern wedding traditions and baby names. Miroku, Inuyasha, and occasionally Kohaku, went out to a nearby field and worked on ideas and techniques about how Inuyasha could get more power out of Tessaiga. Miroku also worked on some of his meditative calisthenics; it had been some time since he'd been able to do anything about his personal health, and he could tell it was only going to get more difficult with Sango's pregnancy. Ultimately, he worried it wouldn't matter much if he couldn't figure out a way to permanently heal Sesshomaru. Grimly, it had occurred to him that if anything happened to Sesshomaru in the intervening time, Miroku didn't know whether he would just die too as a result of the bond. He hoped that Rin was looking after him.

"I said, you know you're helping me rebuild that shrine building in the spring, right?" Inuyasha's mildly irritated voice had broken through Miroku's thoughts. Today, it was just Miroku and Inuyasha out in the field. They were taking a break between exercises, when Miroku's fears momentarily absorbed him.

"What's this? A full-fledged demon needs the help of a mere human? Still, if you keep reminding me the same number of times each day as you are now, I don't know how I could possibly forget," Miroku joked. "Not to mention, it's not like I'm going anywhere for the next six to seven months." Unfortunately, since his last statement again involved time and him still being alive for it, he grimaced inwardly once more.

"Oh right – so how are you feeling about becoming someone's father, monk?" Inuyasha asked.

Miroku was stunned: it was highly unlike Inuyasha to ask anyone about their _feelings_. On the other hand, in their conversations, Miroku was surprised to find a new, relative calm in Inuyasha. He seemed somehow settled and content in a way Miroku had never seen in him before. As was the case now, the demon's voice still often bore its usual sarcastic edge, but Miroku realized the question was genuine as his friend looked at him, patiently waiting for an answer.

"Uh, well, a little nervous, I guess," the Buddhist responded, scratching the back of his head. "I'm counting on Sango not to let me mess the kid up too badly."

"It's still your kid. I don't know how much she's gonna be able to do about that," Inuyasha laughed.

Miroku playfully scoffed and kicked his foot in the youkai's general direction. Then, he asked, "How about you? What's it like living in Kagome's time so much now? You seem to be doing a lot to make it work," he concluded, gesturing to his own hair.

Inuyasha, dragged a hand through his shorn, white tresses. "Yeah… I might not cut it this short again," he admitted. "It's… been alright. To be honest, it's a little weird too, though. I've been trying to understand hundreds of years of knowledge in just a few weeks. Obviously, it's been tiring.

"But when I was inside the shrine, with my mother and father and Kikyo, I finally saw myself in ways I never had before. Like I could finally see myself clearly. And I saw that by being with Kagome, that's how I could be most true to myself. I don't know how to describe it, but it's like the jewel reached in and uncovered it for me." He paused. The thought had come out in a sort of stream. It was the first time he had tried to describe it to someone other than Kagome. Miroku was one of his first friends ever. He decided he wanted him to know about it. Maybe they could even help each other out a bit. "I wish you could see what it's like on her side. It's impossible to fully describe it."

"Mm," Miroku nodded, and put on a fake serious expression. "Don't spend too much time over there. Without Kagome around to lighten her mood, I'm worried that Sango's going to try to kill me over the next few months."

"You mean she hasn't tried already?" Inuyasha teased.

"Your words hurt me, Inuyasha," Miroku parried back.

"You know, we've never tried it before," Inuyasha said, a thoughtful look on his face.

"What?" Miroku had asked.

"Bringing somebody else through the well."

:

The youkai, the monk, the priestess, and the two demon slayers stood all around, peering down into the Bone Eater's Well.

"How long of a drop is it, if I don't make it?" Miroku asked, warily. To his dismay, regarding his delicate state of aliveness, Inuyasha had automatically volunteered him as the test subject. Miroku was still considering just shoving Kohaku down instead; he _was_ younger and fitter.

"I'm not sure. I've never _not_ made it through," Kagome replied less than reassuringly.

"Since you're human, you'll probably only break a couple bones," Inuyasha replied.

"Oh good," responded Miroku. "Maybe we should go together the first time, just to be sure?"

"And you want me to hold your hand, too, monk?" the demon teased.

"Inuyasha, at least hold onto this with him," Kagome jumped in to the rescue. She had unwound her hair ribbon and held it out to her fiancé. "Miroku's right: we don't really know what's going to happen."

The two men stood with Kagome's pink and yellow polka-dotted hair ribbon hanging between them. "Now are you alright?" Inuyasha asked, obviously impatient to go but grinning.

Miroku swallowed and nodded. Even though he knew Inuyasha was going to jump in then, Miroku was still a bit delayed in his response. There was a hard tug on the ribbon before it went limp in his hand, just as he fell into the well. _Separated, _was the only word that came to mind before a swirl of cosmic darkness followed by a series of floating, glowing lights engulfed him, as he drifted through time.

:

"Hey, hey," he heard Inuyasha's voice. Snapping fingers hovered over Miroku's face. "You alive?"

"Yeah, I think… Did we make it?" Miroku asked, propping himself up from the floor.

"You made it alright. You almost killed us both, too, when you came through. How did you manage to trip on the edge of the well?" Inuyasha demanded.

"It was my first time! You didn't tell me I had to jump again at the last minute!" Miroku complained, but Inuyasha had already thrown open the well house door.

"Oh hey, Inuyasha," a voice called from a distance.

Looking past Inuyasha, Miroku saw a boy just a little younger looking than Kohaku on the porch of a large house-looking building. In his arms, he clutched a large cat.

"Hey, Souta," Inuyasha replied. Tell Mom to set a couple extra places at dinner. We're gonna have some guests."

:

And that was how Sango, Miroku, and Kohaku took their first trip to the future.

Not long after that, they learned that Miroku had initially passed through the well only because he was holding Kagome's hair ribbon from the modern era. Unfortunately, it was Miroku who found this out the hard way one afternoon when he wasn't carrying anything of Kagome's from her time with him. He was lucky that he made the mistake on Kagome's side, though, where he grandfather had thrown several bails of hay into the bottom of the well just in case any of the neighborhood kids were fooling around and accidentally fell in. From that time forward, however, the friends all travelled back and forth between the two eras to spend time with each other quite regularly.

As Kagome and Inuyasha's wedding date drew closer, Sango, Miroku, and Kohaku began to spend more time at Kagome's grandfather's home in Tokyo. Sango had really taken to helping Kagome and Mrs. Higurashi with the arrangements for clothing and decorations. Kagome also took Sango shopping for new maternity clothes every available chance, the local shopping mall an endlessly novel experience for Sango.

Then, Christmas Day came and Kagome's family introduced everyone to the Christmas traditions imported from the West. Souta and Kohaku dragged the Christmas tree down from the attic and Kagome demonstrated how to hang the ornaments, while Inuyasha tried to keep Buyo from eating all the tinsel. Kagome's grandfather special ordered two large Christmas ducks from the local butcher, a friend of his, so everyone gathered together at the long, low dining table at the back of the house for a Christmas Eve feast. They finished the night falling asleep together in front of the TV watching _How the Grinch Stole Christmas._

In the morning, Kagome awoke to the brush of cool stone and warm fingers against her left ring finger. Beside the couch where she had fallen asleep against her fiancé, he now knelt so his face was very close to hers.

"I recently learned that mates often exchange rings in this era," he said very quietly and earnestly, caressing her hand as she blinked the sleep from her eyes. Kagome lifted her hand to her face and studied the beautiful ring of carved, misty green jade encircling her finger.

"It's not like any of the ones I've seen in the store fronts on this side of the well, but I hope you'll always wear it," the young man said nervously, despite the smile growing on his beloved's face.

"Of course I will!" she replied, choking back tears and throwing her arms around him. "You didn't have to do this: you've already given me so much!"

At the doorway, Sango and Miroku had come down from their bedroom and stopped to watch. The monk had his arm around his wife's shoulders, and he gently squeezed her arm as they watched their friends embrace. "And so have you," Sango said softly, turning and looking at him with love in her dark eyes, as she rubbed her curved belly. All Miroku could do was try to keep smiling and hold her closer. _I just hope I can stay with you for it_, he thought.


	14. Chapter 13

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. **

In the feudal era, it rained cold, icy sleet off and on for the entire first week of January. During the day, Rin huddled under her quilted outer clothes and cape of treated burlap to escape the cold. She also tried to keep up with Sesshomaru, who rode at a determined pace and wore a sullen, frozen look all day. Around nightfall they pushed on to the next inn, if they knew one was nearby, or took up in one of the many empty travelers' huts the district offices often erected along the main trade routes. Yet, both Rin and Sesshomaru felt awkward about staying together in such small, enclosed places. When they used to travel with Jaken and Ah-Un, they always slept directly under the stars during the warm months or in cavernous, mountain caves in the wintertime. Now, dark, cozy, little inn rooms just wound up feeling cramped, while the ramshackle, drafty traveler's huts were always desolate no matter how hot they made the fire in the interior pit. The problem was that they had become like strangers to each other the over last few months. When two friends might have had laughter and conversation to pass the time or keep them warm at night, she and Sesshomaru seemed to have nothing to share. One evening, as she lay in her futon at an inn that they had stayed at for two nights because the weather had gotten so bad, Rin realized that she had been going about things all the wrong way.

She had been stealing glances around the edge of the fire at Sesshomaru, trying to figure out if he had finally fallen asleep. It had struck her earlier in the week that he was not at all used to sleeping through a full night. So nightly, he struggled through a long period of tossing and turning and irritated sighing, before he finally, bitterly willed Sleep to come to him. That was when it hit her. Despite the pact that she had made with herself the day they set out, in their isolation on the road and her irritation with his self-pity, she had fallen back on old habits and was waiting for him to set the new tone for their travels. She wanted _him_ to talk to her first, to handle the burden of choosing an acceptable topic and level of contact.

_That's not enough, now, Rin_, she told herself, as she heard the agitated ruffle of his futon on the other side of the fire, as he restlessly shifted around. He breathed heavily, and she knew he was still awake without looking over. She had already quickly closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep, but she continued to think. She wondered what he thought about when he tried to fall asleep…

_No, you're going to have to show him the way_, she silently decided. _You decided that you were going to do things for yourself. Jaken and Ah-Un aren't here anymore for you to talk to. __**You, **__at least, still need contact with living beings for you to be happy. You can't really expect Sesshomaru to know how to engage in small talk because there are a lot of things like that he doesn't have the slightest clue about. So you're going to have to lead the way and set an example for him. _

_Starting tomorrow, _she thought_, things are going to be different._

:

It was still difficult knowing where to start. After yet another morning of continued, habitual silence, Rin decided the plan needed reassessing. She would now require herself to make _at least_ two conversation-starting comments to Sesshomaru a day, no matter how awkward they sounded. That was basically one comment in the morning and one comment by evening. _That's not so bad!_ she told herself, pumping herself up to select their first topic of conversation.

For the next hour or so Rin waited craftily until the path widened enough for her to give her little mare a small squeeze to ride up alongside him. Then she sprang: "It's pretty dry today, isn't it?" _Okay, not a thrilling observation to make, but it's a first,_ she had decided.

Obviously lost in some recess of his mind, Sesshomaru started a bit, blinking, before inclining his head in her direction. A few shiny strands of his graphite colored hair fell forward attractively from the impromptu motion, brushing past his cheekbone. She swallowed quickly and repeated her comment before berating herself for not suppressing a nervous little laugh at the end. At least, she managed not to blush… much.

:

Sesshomaru looked down the bridge of his slender, aristocratic nose at his young companion. He felt very much caught off guard. His mind had gone blank from the tedium of riding for so many hours. Before Rin rode up beside him, he had been wishing he could just shift into his giant dog form like in the past and race ahead of the others, scouting out the territory, relishing the rush of air through his coat and adrenaline through his veins. Then, riding on Ah-Un's back, Rin and Jaken would catch up later, leaving him time while he waited to contemplate how best to maintain and expand his territory. That would be no more, though. Now, he was powerless. Now, they didn't even have Ah-Un to fly them places. _Stupid beast, couldn't even finish me off before he left, _he stewed again for the millionth time in so many days.

Now, Rin was looking up at him, her expression strangely anticipatory, like she was waiting for him to do something. He noticed that her face had grown very flushed. Was she getting sick?

"It's pretty dry today, isn't it?" she repeated, her voice rising into a squeak on the last two words, as she seemed to force a questioning intonation.

Sesshomaru didn't know quite what to do. Her observation was so obvious that it merited no real response. Yet, her gaze remained fixed on him, so obviously expectant.

Unable to determine an appropriate next step in the topic's development, he settled on an affirmative "Mmm."

She blinked slowly. For an instant, an unreadable look played across her features before she followed up with, "It seems like we're done with the rain for a bit…" She let the thought trail for a few beats of their horses' hooves, before adding, "What do you think?"

He thought he didn't have any thoughts about it; that's what Sesshomaru thought. He felt a little annoyed at what he wondered might be intentional obliqueness on Rin's part. Still, trying to understand some deeper purpose for the question, Sesshomaru looked heavenward at the nearly cloudless, blue sky. "Yes, for the moment," he answered.

:

A few days later, they started their descent out of the mountains just northeast of Kyoto. From afar they saw the glistening of Lake Biwa below, and steered their horses toward it beneath a cerulean sky edged to the east with large, puffy white clouds. By afternoon, they entered the forested plains surrounding the lake. The sun shone most of the morning, interrupted only briefly by soft white wisps racing ahead of the larger cloud mass that also seemed to be traveling for Lake Biwa, as if aiming to meet Rin and Sesshomaru there. Yet, these were not the like the menacing storm clouds that had dampened their trip days earlier. As the earth leveled out, the horses stepped more lively and even Sesshomaru felt pleasantly distracted by the wildlife emerging from the surrounding trees and underbrush to bask in the sunlight.

"Ah! The air's so crisp today: I wish I could take a big bite out of it!" Rid exclaimed, next to him. Sesshomaru watched and nodded slightly, as she stretched her arms and then lifted her open palms together to her mouth, as if to take bite out of a plump piece of fruit. He was getting steadily more used to her sudden outbursts and had begun to understand that at least not all of them required verbal responses. Fortunately, a nod or acknowledging sigh seemed to satisfy what he decided was some kind of human need of Rin's. It made him realize that the two of them had never traveled so much alone together, and she probably missed Jaken, who although he always acted tormented by it, had engaged in a great deal of lively banter with the girl.

A huge cloud slid across the sun, and the travelers turned their faces upward as the entire stretch of land around them fell into shadow. The other clouds followed close on the stray ones' tails, fringed in full soft grey layers, like the skirts of a well-bread lady. They moved fast now so that speckles of golden light caught between them flashed across the hay-colored winter grasses.

"Oh!" Rin exclaimed, as the first tiny, white flakes danced down from the sky. "It's a snow sun-shower!" she breathed.

Sesshomaru observed as the pace of the flakes quickened. Then, he looked over at Rin; she looked so happy, transfixed by the microscopic, little flakes. He had seen this reaction reproduced in her many times before over the years.

Ever since she was very young, Rin had loved the snow. He still remembered that first winter they spent together after he resurrected her with Tenseiga and the first snowfall that year. She had smiled and laughed and twirled through the frozen precipitation. Having already passed well over a hundred winters in his own life, he couldn't understand at first what excited her so much about the snow. Then, he had remembered that for an eight-year-old human child, maybe the glistening white stuff still held great novelty. Even six years older, Rin still seemed to enjoy this type of weather more than any other. Distracted by the snow, a rare, bemused smile softly blossomed on her lips. Rin hadn't smiled much recently. Sesshomaru suddenly worried that if the snow stopped, she might be very disappointed.

"It seems a bit too warm for it to last," he pointed out in a way he hoped seemed gentle enough.

"I know," the girl responded, watching a few of the dainty little things disappear in the warmth of her opened palm. "Sun-showers are almost always short, but that's why they're special," she explained, looking in his direction for the first time since the snow began. "Look, Lord Sesshomaru: it's the first time you've ever been able to see the snow stuck to your hair."

Sesshomaru looked down at where his hair fell forward over his shoulders. There it was, covered with tiny, white flecks. "I guess I never took the time to notice it before," he admitted.

"Well, before, when your hair was white, the snow still sort of sparkled in it, but otherwise it just blended right in. But now, with the greater contrast, you can see it much better," Rin explained. A few of the icy crystals melted under his own fingertips, as he further examined his hair. "It- It looks sort of- nice," she added, causing him to look up at her, not knowing whether she wished to speak more at length. However, it appeared not, as she briefly chewed her lower lip and quickly glanced around.

The whispering of the snow falling down from the clouds was the only sound between them for a moment. Then, Sesshomaru watched her look back at him. Her eyes were squinted ever so slightly, as if searching for something on his face. Abruptly, she gave her mount a small kick, but her eyes stayed locked on his, as she tugged on the reigns. She then brought the horse around into a canter into the grassy field opposite the bend in the road they were meant to follow. He looked after her retreating form, mystified by her behavior, until Rin again glanced over her shoulder at him. She pulled up on the reigns, bringing her horse to a stop in prancing, little "o" about a hundred yards away.

"Come on!" she shouted, as her mare continued to pace around, ready to take off.

"Why?" Sesshomaru shouted back, giving a hinting nod in the direction of the road.

The girl cupped her hand to her mouth and in response yelled, "Because it's fun!" Patting the mare's neck and with an excited "Ya!" she was off again. It looked to the young man like had no choice but to follow her.

At first he held his face down, expecting the snow to sting his fragile, exposed human eyes, and the horse's back slammed uncomfortably into his tailbone. Thankfully, it didn't take long for him to reach Rin, who had slowed down for him to catch her. Still shielding his eyes, he heard her voice first over the rush of air, as their horses matched stride.

"Look up!" she hailed him.

"The snow!" he replied, his eyelids fluttering uncontrollably.

"It's so light: it melts right away!" she answered. "Just relax and open your eyes! Besides, the horses can see too!"

He lifted eyes and forced his lids open. A flake splashed across his right pupil, and he blinked hard as the water momentarily warped the world around him. By the time he opened his eyes again, though, his thick eyelashes had already wicked away the droplets. The white speckled horizon flew at him once again, not so different from when he used to watch these lands through different eyes.

"See?" she egged, as he turned his face toward her and found a squinting grin heating up her wind-brushed cheeks. Seeing how much she was clearly enjoying herself, Sesshomaru bowed his head in reserved agreement, to which she cracked a wide smile and yelled, "Let's go!" followed by a spirited "Ya! Ya! Ya!" to spur the horses.

With the rhythmic of huff and hoof pounding of the animals and the winter grasses speeding beneath them, Sesshomaru was reminded of golden waves cresting around the bow of a ship, the snowflakes like sea spray. Having only been on a ship once in his life and having done it out of pure curiosity during his youth, Sesshomaru surprised himself with this analogy; however, this experience was different than when he used to run on his own. For one thing, Rin had never run with him before. Now that he no longer could, he regretted that he had never invited her to go with him. He hadn't expected that she would enjoy something like this. He had just never even thought about it, since it wasn't something she had the physical capacity to do on her own. Yet, thinking back to his ship ride all those decades ago, hadn't the other human riders seemed to enjoy the breeze and toss of the ocean, too?

"Lake Biwa!" Rin cheered loudly, bringing him back to their flight over solid land. Sunlight bled through the breaking clouds overhead, and the breeze twirled the snow up over them like a glittering sail. The view of Lake Biwa slid rapidly around the edge of a fence of evergreens, as Rin and Sesshomaru leaned low over their saddles and cut toward it across the clearing.

:

Later that night, when they finally reached their inn in Kyoto, Rin and Sesshomaru practically fell into their futons. Warm and heavy from his bath in the hot springs in the central courtyard of the building, Sesshomaru felt like he was actually melting like honey into the blankets, glowing and toasty beside the fire pit. For the first time since he had awoken from his coma, he actually felt tired, sleep falling over him. _Could it possibly be because I slept for too long, and this strange body is only getting tired now? _he thought drowsily with more than half his face pressed into the pillow.

Sesshomaru's mind began to drift not long after that, but before all thought plunged totally into slumber, he found himself afloat Lake Biwa, revisiting that afternoon. As if outside himself, he saw as he and Rin at last began to slow their horses down beside the lake, close enough see and hear the crash of the icy, Moorish blue waters against the rocky southern shores. Wind-whipped and with tears frozen in the corners of their eyes, Rin laughed and even he smiled a bit between shallow gasps of cold, thick, winter air. Golden afternoon light refracted off the lake surface illuminating everything. The last few snowflakes dangled lazily in the air, as if sticking to the rays of light. He noticed a couple of the crystalline little mites settle in Rin's sunshine-coppered bangs. He had to admit, _It did look… sort of nice._

**:::**

**Note: Hey, all! Hope you enjoyed this scene. It's one I've been thinking about for a long time – Rin and Sesshomaru bonding in this incredibly lush opening of soft, white grasses. I had fun writing it, so I hope you had fun reading it :)**

**If you've been out there, and you've only been reading, please drop me a review so I know you're out there! "Guest" reviews are welcome, too ;)**


	15. Chapter 14

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. **

:::

"_The mountain flower I left behind_

_I strive but vainly to forget,_

_Those lovely traits still rise to mind_

_And fill my heart with sad regret."_

_-_From "Young Violet" in _The Tales of Genji _by Murasaki Shikibu

:::

The next morning Sesshomaru stared into his bowl of ramen while Rin stared at him. Neither of them were eating, and their soup grew steadily colder but for very different reasons.

"Please tell me you're not NOT going to eat that," Rin said in a very dry accusatory tone.

"…I might not be hungry right now," Sesshomaru answered, unenthusiastically watching a piece of seaweed float up from underneath a noodle.

"Sesshomaru, you _need to eat_," Rin sighed in irritation.

"Why does it matter if I eat this or not?" Sesshomaru questioned. Genuinely, he didn't know why Rin fussed so much about his food; _he _certainly didn't care much for any of it.

Releasing what sounded like an angry roar-part-moan, Rin brought her fists down against the table on either side of her bowl. Yellowish broth splashed out onto the table. "It _matters_ because this is what I bought for you to eat, and otherwise, I have no idea what else to get for you!"

To this Sesshomaru replied, "Then just don't give me anything."

_Was that __**attitude**__?_ Rin wondered. It was hard to tell because it was in his usual monotone delivery.

Rin gritted her teeth. "Forget it," she snapped and stood up from the table, leaving her own partially eaten ramen behind. "I'll just see you back at the inn later," she grumbled. With that, she walked off to go find all the rations they needed to get while in town.

Sesshomaru stayed at the little table in the big market square where they had found the ramen stall. For a few minutes, he just people watched, an activity Sesshomaru never really had even the slightest interest in before. Now, he did it quite frequently, though, mostly for a lack of anything better to do. Against everything he had originally thought and felt, he had to admit that perhaps he didn't find human activity as dull as he had presumed.

_What do we have today?_ he asked himself, as his eyes scanned the immediate area. A group of be-smudged children skipped around and pulled on the skirts of a woman picking out vegetables at one of the stands. At a shop front across from his table, an old woman wearing a greasy apron laid out skewers of steaming, blackened cubes of meat on metal racks to entice would-be customers. Nearby, two coarsely, but warmly, dressed men approached with steaming bowls of ramen in their hands, laughing throatily about something. They took the table directly in front of Sesshomaru, and he watched them tuck into their meal with gusto, as they continued their animated talk.

He sighed, as he looked back down at his own lukewarm noodles. Little circles of grease had collected on the surface of the broth. While he didn't want them before either, at least they had been hot. He knew Rin had been right. He was going to get hungry, no matter how much he denied it or didn't want to care. And then there was the fact that he had to keep up his physical strength at least enough until he accomplished what he had set out to do with this trip…

So, he choked down a few more tangles of slippery noodles and cool broth before heading off to do his share of that day's chores.

:

"She's a beaut', isn't she?" the old stable keeper said, as he noticed Sesshomaru stroking the neck of a dark brown mare. The horse looked to be of a good height and temperament for Rin. He had already cursorily checked the eyes and legs.

"Show me the mouth and hooves," Sesshomaru directed, and the man complied despite being slightly taken aback at his customer's unusual forthrightness. Then, they finished the same inspection on a second horse for Sesshomaru himself and bargained out a price for the Sesshomaru and Rin's spent horses in exchange for the new ones.

"Ye want straw shoes for yer horses, too?" the old hand questioned.

"Yes, just for the fore hooves, though," Sesshomaru decided.

"Alright, ye can pick'em up this afternoon, and I'll put the shoes on 'em while yer gone," the man answered, before he decided to say something else to this unusual customer. As Sesshomaru approached the entrance onto the main street, the man stopped him: "_Okyaku-sama, _if I might ask, where're you ridin' with these horses?"

Sesshomaru lifted an eyebrow in interest. "Toward Edo," he replied tersely.

"Aye, on the Big Road, I take it? Best watch out for horse thieves along that stretch," the old stable keeper warned. "Had some people comin' in with bad stories about such along there. Keep an eye out."

Sesshomaru paused for a moment waiting to hear if the man would say anything else about it. When he didn't, the younger man hn'ed and stepped into the street.

From there, Sesshomaru was to buy new woven shawls for himself and Rin as well. He wandered the street for several minutes, looking into shops here and there, until he finally asked someone where he could find a clothes merchant. The place he ultimately arrived at was posted with the words "Textiles, Seamstress, and Clothes".

Inside, he found the shop long and narrow, the walls lined with dark wooden shelves crammed with everything from coarse linens to the shiniest, brightest silks. At intervals along the wall, in alcoves between the shelves, finished men and women's kimono hung on display racks, a source of inspiration for indecisive customers.

Sesshomaru was not one to linger, so he headed straight for a rack hung with rough, pre-made shawls. He rubbed a bit of the thick, slightly scratchy material between his fingers. _Not particularly attractive_, Sesshomaru scowled internally. Along with everything else, he felt that his wardrobe too had taken a serious dive lately.

The tinkle of a young girl's laughter: Sesshomaru looked up from the drab fabric in his hand, directly at the obvious owner of that happy sound. At the far end of the store, she stood atop a short pedestal. She wore a long, over-jacket of icy pink and silver patterned silk. A young man stood beside her, teasing her, as a seamstress circled around her, fussing with final alterations to the bottom hem and sleeves. The girl glowed, as she continued to giggle at the smiling young rogue beside her. Her companion thought she was beautiful, and she knew it. She was about Rin's age. Sesshomaru suddenly caught himself wondering if Rin would have similarly been chased by young men like this one, if he had left her to live a normal life in the villages after reviving her. In comparison to this girl's easy smile, Sesshomaru thought almost automatically of that increasingly familiar, callous expression that was on Rin's face yet again this morning, as she had hunted through the busy street for _his_ breakfast. An unanticipated pang of worry washed over him.

_Well, she will be in the villages again soon, _he told himself solemnly_, so her popularity will be known soon, perhaps just not to me. _

With that, Sesshomaru made a decision. He wouldn't be buying the ugly pre-made shawls. Instead, he approached an older female attendant where she stood unoccupied at the order counter at the back of the shop.

::

Before she even saw the cave, her senses told her the enclosure she lay in was large and stony, a place where sounds ricocheted in echoes all around. The drip-drip of falling droplets hitting flat rock rising above the loud, surrounding hiss of rushing water played percussion on Kagura's subconscious.

She also felt the presence of another inhabitant of the cave: the whisper of someone's footfall; the sigh of someone's breath and even sometimes its fleeting, ticklish heat near her skin; and most noticeably, the touch of someone's hands, their grasp warm like the sun, sometimes moving her limbs, cleansing her face, or wetting her lips.

At last, she opened her eyes, and there sat that someone.

"_Sawat dee,"_ said the stranger, smiling and craning his head to meet her gaze.

Stiffly, Kagura turned her head to the side on the pillow on which it rested. Slowly the muscles in her pupils contracted and relaxed for the first time in weeks, and she saw the individual crouched beside her more clearly. She looked into a pair of dark eyes the color of burnt red clay, their hue sharp and obviously non-human but their shape soft and round like two almonds. His dark skin was tanned nearly the shade of tree bark but with none of its roughness, while midnight black hair tied up in a bun framed gently curving cheek bones that added to the stranger's appearance, which was decidedly amiable even before he spoke. Still, Kagura didn't wish to hang around any longer than necessary to find out his intentions. Awkwardly, she started to maneuver her upper body around in attempt to sit up only to be held firmly back by one of those warm, brown hands.

"No, no, you are alright. All is alright," said the stranger, withdrawing a little to give her space. "Please careful. Your arm," he said, indicating her appendage stretched out by her side. She turned her gaze in its direction. Her nose suddenly registered the medicinal odor coming from the pile of green herbs and bandaging that surrounded the flesh.

"Very…" he seemed to be searching for a word, "disgusting and much pain. You become sick. Very difficult injury," he concluded, by way of explanation.

However, Kagura didn't really hear him. She was searching his face again, trying to understand who this stranger with the broken Japanese was and what he could possibly want with her. _Why couldn't I have just died?_ she lamented.

"Who are you?" she choked out.

"I am Anurak. I am a foreigner. I come from Ayutthaya. Recently, I go to Japan and learn Japanese," he replied happily, sitting back on his heels, as casually as if they were just meeting in the street for a chat.

"Wha- where…" Kagura struggled to collect her scrambled thoughts. "How did you find me, how did you find this place?" she finally asked only to find her host looking very confused. She tried to rephrase her words more simply: "You found me? Where did you find me?"

He nodded at the first question, and pieced together an answer to the second: "I find you in a… a dark place with rocks. You are very bad health. So I take you here. Take care of you." He looked at her hopefully, obviously waiting for her to burst out and thank him. Instead, Kagura only felt sick. Why could no one just leave her in peace, let her finally lose her mind and forget all the terrible things, visions, and people that made her life a living hell?

Suddenly, she shivered violently, and her self-appointed caretaker's face turned serious.

"Because of your arm's sickenss, you become hot… You have-have—" he tried to say more, but he wound up only creasing his brow deeper in frustration. Unable to come up with the word in Japanese, he spoke several words in a language she didn't recognize before grinning in sheepish apology. Reaching for a wet towel, he hm'ed decisively and placed it on her forehead. Then, he ordered, "You rest," before moving away, leaving her to confusion and sleep.

::

Two days later, the evening before they would set off on the road again, Rin walked back toward their inn in Kyoto, hugging a small, paper-wrapped parcel. Having completed all other necessary errands, she found herself with extra time to spend in the capital, and so she had passed the afternoon at a large literature market outside a nearby temple. Everything on sale seemed to be arranged in a completely careless order, giving the impression that the monks were practically dumping the old, ragged texts on the street in some form of early spring cleaning. Her original intention had been to find a more challenging writing primer, but after spending two-hours sorting through the piles, she had also come back with a collection of once popular song poems and a short anthology of local ghost stories, which one of the market volunteers promised contained a satisfying amount of intrigue, thrills, and chills.

Having dropped off her new purchases in the room to find Sesshomaru nowhere in sight, Rin headed directly for the women's bath for a long, hot soak, knowing that it could be quite a while again before they encountered a similarly well-appointed inn. When her head was practically spinning from the steam, and she thought she might actually fall asleep and drown in the bath, she found just enough strength to dry off and shuffle back to the room before passing out for an early night in bed. That was how when Sesshomaru returned to the inn later that night, he found his companion already too deep asleep to receive her present. Quietly, he laid the two simple paper boxes tied with hemp down beside her pillow and climbed into bed himself.

:

In the morning Rin woke with a start to the snap of the shoji door and sat up.

_Aye, kami! I feel like I've been dead! _she thought blearily, blinking at the morning light radiating through the rice paper covering the door. She finally made out Sesshomaru's face in the shadow of his silhouette where he stood at the door and realized that he was looking down at her, his facial expression unusually amused.

"What time is it?" she croaked.

"Time for you to wake up," he replied almost smugly. "I decided to order new clothes for you the other day. They're in the boxes by your pillow. Once you're dressed, come for breakfast, and then we'll set off," he stated. Then, he was off again with another snap of the shoji.

As she shrugged off the covers, she was just starting to suspect that he had initially shut the door so noisily for his own sheer entertainment of getting to watch her startle awake. _He has always had a rather mysterious sense of humor_, she mused, when her eyes fell on the plain paper boxes beside her futon. They were bigger than she had expected. _What did he buy? We only needed shawls,_ she grumbled, tugging on the hemp twine.

She lifted the lid on the smaller, top box, and her heart skipped a beat. Mechanically, she reached into the box and lifted the decadent item up to get a better look: it was a gorgeous light brown, mink stole. "What was he thinking?!" she exclaimed to the empty room, practically dropping the shining pelt back into its box. She now grabbed anxiously for the other box, opened it, and had to stop herself from having a duplicate reaction as she had to the stole.

There it sat, folded, looking so unassuming in its average paper box, the most beautiful kimono and matching hakama pants set. Reverently, she lifted the kimono out of the box, feeling the heavy but quality crepe silk between her fingers. Having spread it out on her futon, Rin saw that the base color was a rich shade of muted burgundy with images of regal, cream-colored peonies spread over it, the largest and most prominent blossoms placed near the collar, shoulders, and the bottom its mid-length hanging sleeves. The matching under-kimono was also made of the smoothest mono-chrome, cream-hued silk, stitched sprigs of some delicate, ornamental tree covering it, meant only to peak out ever so slightly at the collar of the wearer. Meanwhile, the hakama pants and matching waist sash were the color of dark moss, their tasteful pleats finishing in a wide leg at the ankle. Still in the paper box lay folded a set of plain quilted long underwear, which Rin removed to find the last present at the very bottom: a beautiful, foreign-looking, tassel-like decoration featuring an embroidered silk butterfly in shades gold, pink, and green and strung with three beads of off-white jade.

The hot tears were on her face even before she felt them streaming out of her eyes. A couple drops fell onto one of the silken peonies. _Stop it! _she reprimanded herself half-heartedly, but she started to laugh a little, overwhelmed by how charmed she was by the thoughtfulness of her lord's gift.

"Before you didn't cry for months, now all you do is cry all the time," she muttered to herself. Still feeling bemused but terribly emotional, she started to think about how she wanted to wear her hair with her new outfit.

:::

**Note 1: There it is! Our latest chapter! There's even a little suspense woven in there. (Anybody starting to wonder what Sesshomaru's up to yet?) I really had a lot of fun researching the clothes and materials for Sesshomaru's gift to Rin in this one. Not all of it's perfectly accurate or anything, but I felt very satisfied with the details I could include. I realize I must really love writing about clothing… **

**Note 2: Hooray, I finally got to introduce Anurak to you all little more here. I'm actually very excited about his character. I started to come up with him after I visited Thailand (a large chunk of its territory once part of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, if you hadn't already guessed) earlier this year. I hope you'll like him as we go on. I decided that Kagura really needs someone in her life… friend or other, we'll see…**

**Note 3: A little note about the peony: From what I could gather about the peony flower from the Great Wikipedia and other sources, the peony generally blooms in the month of May. When cared for properly, it will bloom year-after-year for a long time, making it known for its longevity or honorability as a flower. Across Asia, it was associated with nobility, wealth, good fortune, purity, and even bravery- all things I think Sesshomaru would wish for Rin when giving her a gift he would anticipate she would use well into the future. **

**Note 4: Finally, and most importantly, thank you much to my lovely reviewers (particular shout outs to Chocolatte and Caloola, who have been very loyal) and favoriters and all of you who are now following **_**Dying to Live**_**. Welcome to anybody who's new,too! Drop me a review, let me know what you think, and read on **


	16. Chapter 15

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. **

When Rin came down to breakfast in the Kyoto inn, she was just as pretty as Sesshomaru had envisioned she'd be in her new attire, if not more so. Despite the fact that he had not had her precise measurements in the shop, the clothes fit her perfectly. She had braided her hair to the side where the only thing from her old ensemble remained: she had tied off the end of her braid with her usual, red hair ribbon. Sesshomaru found it quite charming and was glad that she had decided to keep it, even if it didn't exactly match the rest of the outfit. _Any young man would find her desirable now! _Sesshomaru thought in satisfaction at his good work. Still, he limited his conversation to brief remarks about the good fit of the garments.

She thanked him for his thoughtfulness, pointing out that she particularly liked the butterfly tassel decoration from the continent. Perceptive and polite girl that she had always been, she also complimented the new clothes he had picked out for himself and now wore. They were only a very plain shade of dark blue, the pants with the typical white pin stripes, and the top and bottoms both made from a more humble silk-cotton blend. Regardless, he acknowledged her compliments, saying that his clothes were more than adequate.

Departing from the breakfast table, where Rin forced herself to hold back potentially disparaging comments about how little he ate again – only a cup of tea, a cup of miso soup, and a couple bites of smoked fish – they continued on their way. Two days later on January 16th, they arrived in Nagoya, where they rested for a couple nights, again enjoying being in more proper, significantly less drafty accommodations as the nights grew more and more chilly.

The evening of the 22nd of January found Rin and Sesshomaru within sight of that king among Japanese mountains, Mt. Fuji. Intermittent grey skies had regularly threatened rain for the past two days, so when they arrived, a thick layer of steely looking clouds hung ominously over the mountain's far away summit. The riders were still treated to a dramatically beautiful sunset, as the last rays of golden, westerly light gradually washed down from the leftward peaks. Sesshomaru, of course, had seen Fuji several times fore, but as he had never witnessed a young girl seeing the majestic sight for the first time, he now enjoyed hearing Rin's soft "oohs" and "ahs" at the contrasting shades of dark and light that painted the glittering, snowy slopes.

Even as a chilled breeze picked up from the East, an unpleasant harbinger of the fierce storms finally rolling further inland, he didn't take any pleasure in pulling her away from the scene she found so enthralling; anytime she forgot their troubles, he found himself increasingly willing to linger for her. Still, as they finally rode back down into the forest's night-shade, he couldn't help but be still mildly enchanted at how she continued to crane her neck from the back of her mount, as Mt. Fuji slipped out of sight. "I think I can I really see now why people have been writing about it for all these centuries," she remarked, at last turning her attention back to the ride. Sesshomaru merely smiled ever so slightly back at her and nodded.

Unfortunately, it turned out that they could not escape the freezing rain, though. Earlier that day, they had luckily been told by another group of travelers heading in the opposite direction about a traditional rural retreat inn snuggled away in the foothills, not far from the first view of Fuji from the road. Believing that they knew just about how far the inn was when they departed the overlook, Sesshomaru and Rin urged their horses on at a fast pace along the road in an effort to outpace the storm. Together, they raced ahead, the force of the wind blowing harder and harder at them.

"We should be able to see it when we reach the next rise in the road!" Sesshomaru shouted over a particularly loud gust that sent a confetti-blast of leaves and forest debris soaring up toward their faces.

Racing at break neck speed over lifted tree roots and errant rocks, their horses started to pant. Almost, over-elated from their challenging ride, Rin and Sesshomaru reached and paused at the top of the incline in the road just in time to see the soft glow of the rustic inn'soil lamp before the heavens opened up and a downpour of shockingly frigid rain flooded down upon them.

Rin squealed in dismay and even Sesshomaru released a loud sigh of disappointment, as they were soaked in an instant.

_Really?_ Sesshomaru thought to the gods or perhaps no one in particular, he wasn't really sure, as he weakly held his open palms up skyward in defeat.

Suddenly, he heard the pound of horse's hooves to his right, and his gaze darted from where Rin had been to where she now was almost halfway to the inn. "What are you waiting for? Come on!" she whooped over her shoulder, her high-pitched voice barely audible over the rain beating on the entire forest.

:

"Haha! Can you even believe that just happened?" Rin laughed, obviously referring to the deluge from earlier, as she briskly shut the door to their room and leaned against it. Her hair was still dripping from the bath, as was his. They both wore the matching blue and white, bamboo-patterned, cotton bath yukata provided by the inn, while their clothes dried on racks by a large brazier in the corner of their room.

Rubbing her arms and shivering dramatically, she scampered over to and slid under the warm quilt of the _kotatsu_ table where Sesshomaru already sat rigidly, listening to the happy muffled voices coming from the rooms around them before Rin entered. As she selected the side of the little square table directly adjacent to him, he watched her with one eyebrow lifted as she set about dramatically settling herself, hastily shoving her legs and, even for a moment, her arms under the draped quilt.

A brush of cotton against his bare ankle: _Was that her sock? _he asked himself, as he immediately snatched his limbs away from the intimate point of contact under the table and simultaneously leaned back. Still startled, he watched with unexplained suspicion as her erratic fidgeting slowly subsided.

"Ah, thank the kami for this inn!" she stated, half-leaning half-stretching her arms over the low table top, obviously unaware that she had touched him under the table. Then, her eyes caught the tin pitcher and two small porcelain cups in front of Sesshomaru.

"Lord Sesshomaru!" she exclaimed, "Don't tell me you haven't had any yet!"

Sesshomaru turned his attention to the object in question. He thought back to how about ten minutes ago he had heard a soft knock at the shoji. A young, slight maid had entered holding the pitcher and cups. She had approached with her eyes discretely lowered. It was only after she had placed the items on the table in front of him that the young thing had noticed both of his discerning eyebrows arched at her, as if to say, _I didn't order anything. _ Her eyes registered concerned confusion and after that, she had retreated out of the room, bowing as quickly as possible. Still the pitcher and cups had remained.

"Haven't had any what?" Sesshomaru now replied.

"Warm _sake_," she answered, reaching across in front of him for the pitcher and cups. "It always comes with the room at this sort of place," she stated, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "Didn't you have any in the bath either?" she questioned, as she looked inside the metallic vessel and lifted the sake urn out of the warm water heating it inside.

"What?" he said.

"It was right there on the floating trays in the bath!" she remarked almost as if she thought he was being purposefully dull.

"I was bathing. Why would I?" he replied honestly, as he watched in curiosity. She shook a few drops of water off the bottom of the bottle of alcohol, smelled the liquid inside, and poured some into each of the two cups.

"Well, then, have some now," she directed, plopping one of the cups down in front of him, which he just looked at and then watched as Rin steadily drank hers down. When she set her cup down again, he noticed how flushed her skin still was even though she had now been out of the bath for several minutes.

"It's going to get cold," she said indicating his cup again. "Drink yours, too," she instructed in the same voice she used when telling him how to eat different human foods.

Sesshomaru looked into his cup. In all his life, Sesshomaru had simply just never _bothered _with alcohol. He could never imagine what it could possibly do for him that he couldn't already do for himself with all his own force and intellect. Of course, he had met several lesser demon lords who had indulged heavily in the drink, but he usually only came into their acquaintance shortly before he cut them down and took control of their lands. Why they drank it he didn't know; certainly, it hadn't made them stronger, and if it had, then that was even more embarassing. In short, he had seen no reason to ever try it before. Yet, here he was with a cup of the stuff in his hands and himself now with absolutely nothing to lose but his pathetic life.

Slowly, he tilted the cup back. First, even before the warm liquid touched his lips, he felt its soft, floral, alcoholic fragrance tingle ever so softly around his nostrils. Then, as the drink entered his mouth, he felt its heat, at first merely physical from the tin sake warmer, but then he sensed its gentle burning flavor as it slid over his tongue and gums and down into his throat. From there, it passed and settled hotly in his chest and finally his stomach. _Well, I guess I can see why frail __**humans**__, at least, might have reason to drink it in the cold like this…_

"Good," Rin said, seeing that he had finished his cup. "Now, have another one," she directed, having seized his cup and refilled it again. He promptly shot her one of his famously dubious looks.

Smiling playfully, she sighed in mock exasperation and proposed, "Let's play a game." _How high can those eye brows go? _she asked herself as she watched him raise them up another half step. "Jus' givit a try- humor me?" she finished, trying to sound cool, even though she was a bit surprised herself at how she'd allowed a few words to slur.

"It's called 'Two Truths and a Lie,'" Rin began, topping off her own cup to make things fair. "I heard a group of other travelers playing at one of the inns we stayed at last week, and after listening a while, I think I figured out the rules. We each think of three facts 'bout ourselves, but only two of the facts are real, while the third one's a lie, or not true. Then, we take turns sharing our facts – the first person tells all three of their facts at once, being careful not to reveal the lie, so the other person has guess which fact is the lie. If the guesser guesses the lie correctly, the other person has to finish their drink; however, if the guesser is wrong, then the guesser has to finish their own drink!" she finished with a devilish look in her eyes, "So whaddya think—shall we play?"

"So one 'wins' by being deceptive?" Sesshomaru asked after a moment.

"Yup!" replied Rin, enthusiastically bobbing her head.

"Hmm," Sesshomaru answered, still looking skeptical.

"Aghhh," Rin sighed impatiently, before deciding "Look, I'll go first, and you guess. Le'see, mmm…" Sesshomaru watched with passive patience, as she apparently racked her mind for three facts. He started slightly, when with an animated "ah-ha!" she began, "Okay, my three facts: 1. When I was about twelve, I tore a hole in the back of my yukata, I and wouldn't allow you to see the back of me for a whole two days until I could fix it. 2. One day, while I was bathing, I decided to try cliff diving into the Tama River. 3. Once, when I was a child, I burned Jaken with his Staff of the Two Heads while you were out hunting, but when you returned he was too embarrassed to say anything about it. That's it- now, guess!" she instructed, looking excited.

Still not entirely sure he felt like playing, Sesshomaru sighed and repositioned himself under the kotatsu. He proceeded, "Well… so it seems like I need to eliminate the two truths first… The first one's easy. It's true: I remember when you tore that hole in your yukata because I saw it."

"You did?" Rin said, looking awe-stricken and betrayed. _Oh! I wonder just how much of my under garments he saw without saying anything?! _she wondered, stifling a hot blush, but Sesshomaru was already moving on.

"Hm… The cliff diving I'm not too sure about, but aside from the Tama River, there's not a lot of detail to that one…" he considered, now looking more thoughtful about his guessing. "But the last one, Jaken getting burned by you with his own staff—I do remember something about him getting burned by that thing... more than once," Sesshomaru smirked a little. "So, I think three is also true. Number two, the cliff diving, must be the lie then," he declared.

Rin wore a mischievous grin of her own, though. "Wrong!" she piped in satisfaction to his somewhat surprised expression. "_I _actually never tried to burn Jaken, with his staff or otherwise, but he did burn _himself_ with his staff several times while you were not around. He was trying to show off his 'immense' abilities to control its power. I personally think the old man and woman carved on top of it had a good laugh disobeying him on purpose at those times," Rin giggled. "Oh, I wonder what he's doing now…" she trailed off a little sadly before almost instantly brightening up again. "Now, drink, 'cause you got it wrong! And then it's your turn!"

After draining his cup (which Rin promptly refilled) and throwing his eager companion one last slanted look, as if to say, _Do I have to go?_, Sesshomaru settled on his three facts. "First: When we were children, I pushed my half-brother down a hill into a muddy swamp and told our father it happened because he was clumsy and tripped. Second: One time, I didn't transform out of my dog form for almost seven years. Third: Once, I tried to swim across the sea between here and the continent to see if I could."

"Oh, these are interesting!" Rin commented, pensively tapping the tips of her fingers together. "Okay, let me see… when you were a child you pushed Inuyasha into a swamp to embarrass him in front of your father… Although, I've never really thought about it before, I can easily imagine the two of you not getting along at all well as children, so I can actually picture you doing that to him," she reasoned, shooting him a playfully judgmental glance.

"The second one: Believing it's totally possible for you not to break dog form such an extended period of time, I can also easily imagine you roaming the Western Lands as a massive dog for seven years. You've certainly lived long enough," she added, thoughtfully biting her lower lip. "It's the last one I'm suspicious of… You once tried to swim the sea between here and the continent… Again, you've certainly lived long enough, and I'm guessing you would have figured your body resilient enough to do it. But there's the problem of the detail that you decided to do it simply to see if you could: I have rarely known you to do anything, Lord Sesshomaru, that you didn't have a purpose for doing. So, the third fact doesn't sound like you at all," she determined, studying him through squinted eyes, as if it would improve the clarity of the subject sitting across from her. "So it seems to me that the second one's certainly true, the last one's apparently the lie, and the first one-although hardly a testament of your good character," she added with rambunctiously, inhibition-less censure, "therefore, must be true."

Sesshomaru was now starting to enjoy his emergent success at this small competition. "Incorrect: there's a flaw in your logic," he pointed out a little smugly, as he watched her face fall. "Firstly, you did guess well about my patrolling the Western Lands for several years as a dog. Several times in my long life, especially after my adolescence ended, and I struck off on my own, I preferred my natural form over my humanoid appearance. Truly, I had nothing to think of beside eating and roaming; however, in my later years, I suppose I found the wanderlust comparatively quelled…

"However, you fell for the bait when you automatically assumed that I spent part of my youth tormenting my half-brother. While I would have been only too happy to humiliate my half-brother when we were young, the fact was that our father died right after Inuyasha was born, and so I almost never saw him until many years later. So, no, I never pushed him into a muddy swamp… Which, leaves my attempt to cross the sea to the west of here: which I did try once, in my youth, but I found myself deterred by a bad storm…" he concluded sounding very off-handed, in Rin's opinion, given the volumes she felt she had just learned about him. Although it was vague through the sake haze, she suddenly realized she knew embarrassingly little about his life from the years before they traveled together.

"Oh, well," she said and cleared her throat, "Looks like it's my turn again, then."

"Wait, didn't you make me take a drink before, when I guessed yours wrong?" Sesshomaru stopped her, looking confused.

"Ah, looks like I've taught you too well, Lord Sesshomaru," she said, with a glint in her eye, as she tilted back her cup and then refilled.

Several rounds later, Rin and Sesshomaru were nearly matched at their game, when the last cup of sake went to Rin for guessing incorrectly that Sesshomaru also knew how to speak Chinese, when he really couldn't.

"Oh no," the girl moaned, as she poured from the urn what turned out to be one last full cup of sake. "Who knew there was ach'lly tha' much left?" she questioned, covering her eyes in quasi-mock dread. "Can I request back up?" she asked, shooting Sesshomaru a pleading look.

"You may," he permitted, a red glow now having settled high on his cheekbones as well.

"My hero as always," she declared, accepting his cup, into which she poured slightly more than half of her drink. Dramatically, she gulped down the remainder of her portion with an exaggerated, wincing "ah!"

"Done!" she said, turning the drained cup in his direction so he could see the empty bottom. Then, leaning forward and resting her chin on her folded arms, she announced, "D'ya wanna hear one las' truth for the night, mi'lord? This is the firs' time I ever drank."

"Hn. Same," he replied evenly, taking another sip from his cup.

"What?! Really?" Rin laughed, her eyes sleepy but twinkling in the dim light coming from the brazier.

"Mmm," he nodded in drowsy affirmation. Then out of the blue he straightened up ever so slightly and in that naturally serious tone of his said, "Rin, we talked about most of the other truths and lies, except your first one – did you really go cliff diving on the Tama River?"

"Huh? You really want to know?" she asked, a curious grin on her lips, as he gave her another demure nod. "It's ach'lly kinda embarrassing… Did you know I used to pretend I was you when I was a child?"

"Really?" Sesshomaru asked, his attention now totally on Rin.

"Oh, yeah, all the time— it used to drive Jaken crazy when I'd pretend to order him around! Anyway, so ya see, it was morning, a good time for a bath at a bend in the nearby Tama River before we broke camp. I was about ten, then, so when I finish washing, I decided it might be fun to play by the water for a bit, before I went back to camp. I was picking my way up along the rocks, creeping over moss and branches that had grown over the stone, pretending I was you, a silent hunter moving almost invisibly through the forest.

"Before I knew it, I had snuck my way high above the riverbank. I looked down and saw the Tama deep and blue and calm below. And I pretended I was you, about to effortlessly swoop straight down off of some much higher up cliff to save me from an imaginary bird or panther demon. So with hardly even a second thought I dove, naked, off the cliffs into the water below," Rin narrated, her gaze somehow faraway as she made a smooth diving motion with her hand toward the tabletop. "When, I emerged from the water, my heart was pounding, but loving the thrill, I dove several more times after that, perfecting imaginary Sesshomaru's attack on the bird and panther demons. So it's just like I said before," she finished, as she stifled a yawn and nestled her face down into her arms, "you were always the hero."

"Hn. Somehow it's strange for me hear to that you used pretend to be me…" he observed after a moment, looking somberly into his cup. _If only, I could just pretend to be myself again, _he thought before saying, "Although, I suppose it makes sense, you didn't have much memorable contact with other people when you were—hn? Rin? Rin?" he asked immediately, feeling her body turn toward him under the kotatsu.

Through his thin cotton robe, he felt her drawn up her knees press against his outer thigh. He panicked, as he felt a strangely hot tingle springing up on his face and neck… and suddenly in the pit of his stomach. _Damn it, why am I sweating all of a sudden?_ he thought anxiously wondering if the alcohol was making him sick. "Rin? I think… you're touching me… Are you asleep?"

Seeing her face still buried in her arms on the table, he felt a strange rush of relief wash over him, as he realized, _She's just asleep_. Carefully, he then pushed himself away from the kotatsu and away from Rin's knees.

Stepping softly around her, Sesshomaru retrieved a blanket from one of the futon and gently laid it across her shoulders. Then wearily, he brushed a few beads of sweat from the back of his neck and collapsed onto the blanket-less futon, wondering how his body could be freezing one moment and then his blood could be practically boiling the next…_ It's all too much… I'll never understand this body_, he moaned to himself, sinking into sleep.

::

Little did Rin and Sesshomaru know as they reminisced about a certain little, green demon and his signature staff the previous night, the next morning dawned back on the southwestern side of Honshu to find Jaken also recalling better times past. As it happened, he awoke lying right next to that very same staff, looking directly into its two faces. Unfortunately for them both, it had also rained across the whole area south of Edo, so the little imp youkai had been forced to take refuge for the night beneath a large juniper bush, under which he now lay face-to-face with his only companion... er, companions.

"Oooooh! What are we going to do now, my poor Nintoujohhhh?" Jaken whimpered, as his body gave a writhing shiver on the frozen ground.

Beside him, the staff continued with its usual petrified, harsh gaze.

"Nothing's been right since we left Lord Sesshomaru almost a month ago! Oh, ho, ho! We have been cold and alone almost every night!" the little green demon still wailed, before a somewhat squeezed, tortured sound emitted from his stomach, causing him to stop only for a moment before he began tragically wriggling again. "And now I'm hungry, toooo!" he cried, totally forgetting himself and throwing his little arms around the staff. Less than a second later, though, he promptly recoiled from the embrace with a strangled, little squeak after looking up to find his own two bulging yellow eyes a terrifying mere millimeters from its four bitterly scrutinizing ones.

"If only none of this had happened, and I could have stayed with Lord Sesshomaru foreverrrrr," he moaned into the dirt, now lying practically on his face, no longer caring about the brown dust and mulch that clung to his clothes and pointed hat. _Everything's already a mess anyway! _he thought, despairingly. _Perhaps I should never have left Lord Sesshomaru. I could still swallow my pride _and_ go back, if he's still alive... It's not the worst fate for a little demon imp, is it? To have served one of the once most powerful demon lords in Japan? _he wondered for the hundredth possible time.

"But that's the problem, Jaken, he was _once_ one of the greatest lords, and you let him get attacked all alone. Knowing Lord Sesshomaru, he will find it even more a hateful mockery of his former glory to have you return to his service. The shame for both us will be positively crushingggg!" he sobbed in conclusion, huge tears making little pools of mud under his face.

"It seems like I have no choice but find another master!" he lamented, finally. "Oh, Lord Sesshomaru, wherever you are out there – _if_ you're still out there – I'm s-s-SORRYYYYYYYYY!"

:::

**Note: Oh, poor Jaken! Anyway, review, review, review, dear readers! Give me your thoughts! Thanks to all of you who already have—keep it up!**

'**Til later! Origamikungfu.**


	17. Chapter 16

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.**

**:::**

"_Your heart admires the lowly flower_

_That dwells within our mountain bower._

_Not long, alas! that flower may last_

_Torn by the mountain's angry blast."_

-From "Young Violet" from _The Tales of Genji_ by Murasaki Shikibu

:::

Finally after dragging themselves out of bed the next morning with two hangovers ranging from mild to rather serious, Rin and Sesshomaru took off from the coziness of the rustic inn to begin the rest of their ride around the southern face of Mt. Fuji. Although he could tell the first day's ride was a little rough on Rin, who judging from the slight list in her riding posture for the first few hours was experiencing the rather serious hangover out of the two them, he noticed that she was in generally higher spirits than she had been before they reached the Mt. Fuji area. Over the next few days, she laughed and joked more than he had seen her do in months, and it seemed obvious to him that she had to be enjoying being among her own kind again; naturally, as they approached the Edo area, there were more human settlements with proper inns for Rin and Sesshomaru to take shelter in, each filled with other people with whom Rin could converse. Contrary to his original expectations, though, while Rin would chat pleasantly with other young women, and the occasional young man, in the communal areas of the rest houses and more frequent check points at which they stopped, she never failed to return early to their room in an effort to pull him into a few minutes of warm conversation before bed.

Sesshomaru was quite sure by now, though, that he was not much of a conversationalist compared to most humans. This was especially in comparison to the young men he had closely observed, as they nightly engaged Rin and her peers in small talk at the inns. Even the less handsome ones could usually bring a few sparkling giggles from the girls as effortlessly as an expert musician draws notes from a flute or harp. _Good, she'll need to find someone else take care of her soon anyway. Let her be a little popular with the boys, _he advised himself, stiffly restraining himself when he watched from across the dining area as one who looked like the cook's boy approached her by the rice server earlier that night.

Revisiting that moment from dinner, Sesshomaru could deduce even less why Rin kept toiling to work a few strained replies from him each night. Regardless, he realized that he appreciated it… The distraction of her increasingly effervescent companionship helped ease at least a little bit the almost constant pain he suffered as his tortured countdown dragged by to the time when they'd finally reach their destination… _And I can finally carry out my last, dying—_

But the rattle of the shoji interrupted his thoughts as it usually did this hour of the evening. "I'm back, Lord Sesshomaru!" Rin bubbled, as her glowing visage appeared at the opening in the door. She held two small, brown, clay cups, one hugged close to her body in the crook of her arm and the other in her free hand as she slid the door shut with the other. "I was talking with the cook's son at the water tap at the back of the inn, and he said he could slip me a couple sneaky cups of hot sake to warm us up before bed. You'll have a bit with me, won't you?" she said, her warm eyes pleading, as she carefully knelt beside Sesshomaru and lowered the cups to the table.

_Oh well, I suppose you can always finish that line of thought later, _Sesshomaru chided himself, knowing his own internal exasperation at the interruption was not even really genuine. "Sure," he agreed evenly, as he took the cup.

As Rin playfully clinked her cup against his, a recent effort she had undertaken to teach him how to toast, Sesshomaru understood something: that he didn't want to admit the way he felt the unclenching of something deep down in his chest when she finally sat down beside him each night… Because he really wanted to deny that he had started to feel impatient for her nightly return… And he wanted to deny that even more because it made him feel a little less like doing what he needed to do when he met his half-brother in a few days…

:

Their trip continued, finally bringing them to the area of Yaga, barely a day or two's ride from Edo. They'd reach his half-brother's village in no more than three or four days, Sesshomaru figured as they trotted up to the local rest station about an hour before sunset.

The inn at the station was extremely plain, but nice. Chatter inside the little lodge's unusually organized canteen revealed that the territory had passed less than two years earlier into the capable hands of the local Lord Takizawa, a well-known, fervent, young convert to Pure Land Buddhism. Apparently famously dedicated to the service and care of his lands and the people living on them, at least in comparison to the lords of the surrounding territories, Lord Takizawa had taken up administration of the check points and inns along his section of the Big Road with impressive zeal. Rin and Sesshomaru had to agree: while the public rest station's inn was nowhere as charming as the first inn they stayed at in the Fuji region, at least one could get a decent hot dinner and a clean bed at a fair price. So later that night, Rin and Sesshomaru laid down side by side in soft, dry, down blankets.

They were in a common sleeping room shared by all of the tenants of the inn, so the two slept closer together than normal, causing Sesshomaru to feel a bit crowded and shamefully disappointed at missing his nightly routine with Rin; however, he took some solace in the fact that their close proximity allowed him to keep a good eye on her throughout the night. They exchanged brief, soft good-nights and did their best to drift off to the quiet whispers of mothers hushing their young children accompanied by the tap of cold rain on the roof tiles above. Glancing once more at Rin's back through his greyish-brown eyes, he found the rhythmic rise and fall of her body gentle with sleep since she had rolled over in between her covers. At that moment, Sesshomaru felt glad to be warm and indoors with her, a feeling he never would've guessed he'd have, not in hundreds of years.

:

Dawn rose icily the next the morning as if the sun had frozen overnight beneath a thick sheet of steely, grey ice. As soon as Rin and Sesshomaru stepped outside, the sharp, damp air bit painfully at their cheeks and noses, the atmosphere all together uninviting after the nightlong frozen rains. Miraculously, the temperature had not remained low enough for the fallen water to actually turn to ice, so they forged forth, instead hampered by rocky mud and soupy, brown puddles.

After they had been riding a while, and he had watched one too many times as Rin uselessly tried to pull a bit tighter the knotted ribbons on her stole, Sesshomaru asked, "Did you sleep well, despite all the people last night?" He hoped talking might help distract the girl from the cold.

Rare as it still was for Sesshomaru to ever start any kind of conversation, Rin steadied herself a little from falling out of her saddle. "Oh, yes, I was fine," she piped up, enthusiastically. "How about you? Did you find it alright?"

"It was tolerable," he replied, finding to his dismay as usual that his typical economical way of speaking often put an early end to more inconsequential topics. He needed to save the conversation: "I suppose I prefer it when we have a private room," he added, and then noticed that the blood had risen high on Rin's cheeks. _At least she doesn't look cold anymore,_ Sesshomaru thought.

"Oh, uh, I definitely like that better, too," she responded, her cheeks still rosy.

"Yes, well," he fumbled, sensing that the conversation was still going in the wrong direction somehow. "Hopefully, that little collection of hovels where my half-brother's gang wastes their time will have a decent place for you to stay."

"Oh, I'm sure it will be fine. Besides, Lady Kagome also lives there, and she doesn't seem like she'd stay anywhere that wasn't nice," she said, sounding more optimistic about it than he felt.

"Hn," he replied, as they found themselves at an interesting break in the path. A wide, long clearing between the trees littered with round, _temari_ ball-sized rocks told of a forgotten creek that it seemed had been diverted elsewhere, leaving this stony bed now dry. The area for the original waterway had apparently been cleared away long ago by men, judging by the way that the trees on either of its former banks had had time to spread their highest branches in a thick, green canopy overhead that held out the dim winter sun.

"Looks like it used to be a run-off point for one of the local lord's lands… Maybe that Lord Takizawa had it redirected elsewhere," Rin observed from where they paused on the old westward bank.

"If it was done at all recently, then the ground could still be quite soft. Cross with care," he directed, as he eased his horse forward first.

"Right," Rin agreed, edging her little, dark brown mare after him. "Um, Lord Sesshomaru," she began a little hesitantly after couple minutes, when they were about mid-way across the creek bed, and it was obvious that the horses would be alright crossing. "Do really you think Inuyasha and Lady Kagome will actually be there when we get to their village?"

Sesshomaru didn't answer for a moment. "Yes. Or I will go find them. Mainly, I just need my half-brother's monk," he answered shortly.

Still, Rin tried to proceed carefully now that she had the chance. "Well, if I might ask, what do you plan to do when you find them?" she questioned. Just after, her horse snorted irritably, one of its hooves slipping slightly on a rock below.

Sesshomaru turned a bit in his saddle, partially to see that she was okay and partially to answer her. His expression was strangely stern all of sudden. "Rin, I don't—" he began, when suddenly his whole body dropped about a foot out of Rin's sight.

What happened next seemed to occur at first in slow motion according to Rin's memory. "No! NO!" Sesshomaru shouted over his horse's ear-splitting, confused whines, while he pulled hard on the beast's reigns and smacked its rump to no avail. "DON'T! DON'T" he yelled again, but Rin could already see that the animal's forelegs were crumpling one after the other into a forward-pitching kneel on the rocks.

"SESSHOMARU!" she shrieked, but momentum had already taken over, as the horse tumbled, screaming, head-first toward the ground. Unable to breathe, Rin saw as, almost unnaturally, the animal's huge head swung left before hitting the huge stones, causing its massive right shoulder to roll off the ground first. Fortunately, this allowed Sesshomaru to somersault down from the saddle before the rest of the heavy, thrashing body could crush his arms or legs into the creek bed. This didn't prevent mud and baseball sized rocks from being flung on top of him, though, as the horse fitfully struggled back onto its legs.

Rin had just opened her mouth to yell again, when Sesshomaru's voice rose painfully from the ground: "Rin, stop. Don't come any closer."

:::

**Note: Whew, two chapters within the week: it must be a record! Reviews, please, sweet readers, reviews! As I've seen other fanfic writers point out before, reviews are the **_**only**_** way we get paid. Show the love! 3 Origamikungfu. PS. Big thanks to odango88 and Chocolattechan for their reviews on the previous chapter and to all of you who added this story to your favs and follows!**


	18. Chapter 17

_**Dying to Live**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.**

**Warning: Although the worst of it has been starred out (***), there's some crude language in this chapter and a possibly disturbing physical scene.**

**:::**

"Rin, stop. Don't come any closer," said Sesshomaru from the ground.

Then, Rin saw it: a tar-dipped rope stretched directly across the path on which they had been taking their horses across the creek bed. It was apparently pulled taught about a foot and a half above the ground between two, distant, unseen pegs, perfect for tripping horses already distracted with minding the rocks underfoot. The dark color of the tar coating camouflaged it better still.

Rin had hardly a moment to spare it another thought, before a pair of rough hands clamped gruffly around her waist, snatching her sideways off her mount and down to the ground. With a surprised shriek, she found herself pushed to her knees on the sharp rocks with her arms painfully twisted behind her back, as two other men appeared as stealthily as if they had just popped out of the ground. From their clothes, it was obvious that was exactly what they aimed to do: both wore loose fitting shirts and pants made of course cotton, artlessly although effectively dyed a splotchy shade of grey the same color as the rocks covering the ground. Rin could only assume that the third man holding her from behind wore a similar outfit. As the smell of his hot, rancid breath hit Rin's nose, she thought she was going to be sick.

At the same time, one of the shabbily dressed compatriots of the man behind her, who was tall, thin, and rather baby-faced, calmly approached Sesshomaru's horse. His hands out and open in a gesture of peace to the still distressed animal, and he began to coo and whisper softly to it. Meanwhile, the second man Rin saw was quite thick in the arms, legs, and neck, and looked more like a blacksmith than a thug except for the very dull, empty look about him. Lumbering, he made his way over to Sesshomaru, and automatically, she disliked the way the thick man loomed over her felled lord. She then sensed immediately that things were about to get much worse. The brute holding her instantly confirmed her fear, as he snickered loudly and breathed into her ear, "_Lucky for us that the proud man was riding first in front of his lady."_ With that, the thick man swung one beefy leg back and unleashed a sharp kick.

"NO!" Rin raged, the word escaping her lips, wild and strangled as her throat had already begun to stick thickly with hot snot and tears. "Noo! Noo! Please, he's injured! His chest is wounded! You'll kill him, please stop! _Stop right now!_" she screamed again.

Practically giggling, the piggish man only groped her closer to himself, crooning greasily. "Aw! Pleading for your big man's life, are we? _I like it when a woman grovels before me._" With that, he made to draw her into an even tighter, meaty-armed hug that practically choked her from behind, forcing a yelp from her as he squashed one of her small breasts in his dirty hand.

Meanwhile, the thick man with the empty-headed look in his eyes didn't stop. The pointed toe of his leather boot dug straight into Sesshomaru's middle again and again. Rin imagined her own intestines rearranging at the sight of it, and her guts burned. Every fiber of her being torn between total fear for both her own physical safety and Sesshomaru's life, she felt she would go mad as the blood rushed to her head, hammering at the backs of eyes and the insides of her temples. Adrenaline and sheer anger rising, she clenched her teeth so hard, she would later wonder that they didn't all crack.

And then she heard it: Lord Sesshomaru's rasping moan followed by a tortured series of sharp inhalations caught somewhere painfully between choking and breathing. In the middle of all the tumult, her soul whispered but one word. _Sesshomaru._ The pound of her own blood vessels and his failing breaths were the only sounds Rin could hear. Everything else was instantly smothered out, even the boar behind her, as he pressed his grubby fingers to her cheek and with his wet breath in her ear said, "Pretty bitch like you could fetch a much better price than a flea-bitten nag—"

The piercing, metallic flavor of the man's blood soaking her front teeth suddenly felt very real in her mouth. Without warning, the world returned to full volume: "LITTLE C*NT!" the boar roared into her eardrum, as his bitten hand dropped its grip. Thrusting her full weight forward, Rin dove instinctively for the ground. The hilt of the dagger—the same she pulled from the wall of the mansion the night she found Sesshomaru dying— was solid in her hand as she tore it from the sheath she'd lashed to her lower leg beneath the wide pant of her trousers. She drove it unflinchingly into the man's foot.

Above her, Pig Face reared and screamed savagely. Fleetingly she noticed that the skinny horse whisperer, sensing that the plan had gone awry, had leapt onto Sesshomaru's horse and bolted in alarm for the forest. The thick, muscled man had finally stopped kicking and had turned his dumb gaze from his suffocating victim to his raging companion. In the midst of the entire riot, with his arms hanging limp, he spoke only the word "_Ani_" in the direction of the wounded boar-like man, his tone dazed and questioning. Nudging with his boot, he now turned Sesshomaru over so that Rin could finally see her beloved's face. She made to struggle toward him at the sight of his blue lips and white skin pulled painfully tight over his cheekbones with the effort of breathing. For a moment, she could see into his sad, muddy-grey eyes, and desperate for him not to give in to unconsciousness again, she sobbed, "SESSHOMARU! _PLEASE!_"

Unfortunately, her plea was punctuated with a terrified scream, as the piggish man fell upon her like an incensed beast. "_YOU LITTLE BITCH!_ I'll make you bleed from the inside out for this!" he screamed, dragging her by her hips face down and backward across the rocks. Somewhere off to her side, Rin heard the frantic whiny and stamp of her mare. Despite the horrible thing she already knew was about to happen to her, in some corner of her mind, she thought, _At least the horse is still here._

Then, in front of her, the thick-bodied giant took a few steps forward, also closing in on her. Completely unnoticed by his older brother, he opened his wide, uneven mouth again.

"_Ani? _Big brother? What should I do?" the thick man asked towering over Pig Face, who was now tearing viciously at the back of Rin's clothes.

"_DAMMIT TO HELL, YOU F**KING HEADCASE!_" Pig Face seethed, not to be distracted from his vicious task. "TAROU, GET THE HORSE WHILE I FINISH UP WITH THIS FILTHY—" he began to order nastily but never finished his sentence.

The rider approached so quickly that neither Rin nor the two men standing over her even heard the pound of the horse's hooves until he was practically upon them. A loud _SHUNK,_ like the sound of a sharp ax falling cleanly through a dry log, marked the end of the thick man named Taro's life. The arrow had buried itself, true and straight, into the side of his neck. His massive body had barely even begun its timber-like descent toward the ground, when another arrow sunk itself deep in the chest of Pig Face; only the first half of his brother's name, "Ta-" passed his lips, the remaining "rou" having instantly died on his tongue. His fingers were still knotted up in the silk of Rin's clothes, when his corpse fell heavily upon her.

The scrabble of shoes on the rocks and the sudden relief the of her would-be rapist's heavy body being lifted off her signaled the arrival of another.

"Miss! Miss! Are you harmed?" asked the voice. Strong hands were carefully turning her over, and her eyes took in the unfamiliar, but deeply concerned, male face, as his arms cradled her momentarily. Suddenly, she felt herself gasp, almost involuntarily, like one who had just been saved from drowning. Coming to life again, shakily she began to push up on the firm arms and body now surrounding her.

"_Where is he?_" Rin asked, her own voice sounding too small to match the urgency she still felt.

"Who?" the man replied, looking surprised. "Him? He's dead."

Fighting an initial wave of panic, she realized that the stranger had indicated the fallen body of her attacker. "No, not him. _Him," _she twisted, finally capturing Sesshomaru's form in her vision. "_Him, help him,_" she urged with a still quavering jab of her finger. Looking finally in the correct direction, the stranger steadied her and skidded quickly to the Lord of the West's side.

:::

**Note: Sorry for the short chapter guys (and not a very happy one at that), but I did it because I didn't want to leave you really long without an update. Much like everything that goes up must come down, I'm afraid that my time for lazing about and writing at my leisure is coming to an end with the end of summer, so I'm afraid that updates are going to be much fewer and far between for a while. But don't fear! I've got the plan for this story, and we're going to see it through, even if it takes some time! Thank you so much to all of my loyal readers and reviewers. You guys are definitely a HUGE part of my inspiration to keep going :D 'Til later – Origamikungfu.**


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